Mellow Out
by Bloodstained Comma
Summary: An defiant youth is sent to live at The Wammy's House at the age of fourteen. She quickly finds herself burdened with a hyper, four-year-old blond child following her everywhere. Rated T for profanities and mild descriptions of violence in some chapters.
1. Chocoholic

_Me with my many multi-chaptered Death Note stories. -Hits self in head-_

_I just can't help it. _

_Bit of a better summary than what was in the little thing on the front:_

_**Alpha is new to the Wammy's House, much to her dismay, after spending a few years in a street gang that got busted. Her disregard for the rules is still strong and she doesn't particularly care whether she gets punished or not, but the orphanage wishes to have people with her intelligence there, so she has to stay, but she has to see a therapist due to the "trauma" of her past. The first person in the orphanage to take to her is ten years younger than her and deathly annoying due to his energetic nature, not to mention he keeps swiping her chocolate, but after learning a little more about him, she decides that she is there for the sole reason of becoming his mentor.**_

_The story should follow up until she's about eighteen or twenty. This is one of the **few** stories that I have the ending of planned out. That's mostly because I thought about the ending before anything else._

_Disclaimer: I don't own any Death Note or characters, places, or concepts._

_Warnings for this chapter: Profanity_

* * *

_Well, now that I have to keep a journal, I might as well tell you a little about me. I live at The Wammy's House. Love that name. Where'd they come up with that one? It's probably because you'll get Roger's cane whammed across your knees when you misbehave_…_. Eh. I don't know. It's an orphanage. Yup-yup. An orphanage. My bloody parents had to go and get their selves killed in a gang fight. Well, zippidy-doo! Considering you can't actually hear my voice speaking to you through the paper, I should probably note that that was sarcasm. I won't be surprised if this place gets sick of me and dumps me off somewhere else, the bloody feck-heads. The submissive little buggers here are already getting on my nerves and it's only been a week so far since I was forced to start writing in this bleedin' notebook by my 'therapist.' Wonder if this'll piss her off: holy shit I'm fucking fourteen years old and every fucking other damned word out of my mouth is a damned PROFANITY. Haha. Love that._

_Anywho, yeah, I'm stuck here in this prison now with a bunch of submissive genius kids that I have absolutely nothing in common with. I mean, good __lord__, I've been a part of a street gang for the past three years. Since I was eleven. I know you're thinking that can't __possibly__ be normal at __all__. And I'm here to inform you that you are probably right in assuming that. Wait, notebooks can't think things are normal or abnormal. What sort of sense does that make? Bloody hell, I'm being outwitted by a book. God help me._

_I think they're considering giving me a lobotomy to make me obey orders. If these kids didn't all have IQs of a billion, I would think that they were already forced to have lobotomies. Oh, they think it's all goody gumdrops that they do __exactly__ as they're told because they all want to be number one! 'Number one' right now is that weird letter-face cake-eater, ol' what's his name. Or in his case, ol' what's his letter. Was it Z? I don't fecking know. I'm going to call him Z until I figure it out. Yeah. How you can stay thin as a bloody rope when all you eat is cake is just beyond me, but Z somehow manages it. Go figure that one out, why don't you. Actually, I think it may have been T. No… it wasn't. This is going to bug me horribly. I should go ask someone. Be back in a moment, my friend with the paper galore.  
__––––––––––––––––_

Alpha picked her head up from looking down at the paper in her notebook, and immediately realized that sitting in the couch in the game room to write in her "psychodiary" was a mistake. She should have kept to her room. There was someone standing in front of her and looking curiously at her. Even better, it was the small child that always followed Z… or T… or… something… around. Despite the fact that he was barely taller than her knee, the first sentence out of her mouth made her want to punch him.

"Are you the crazy new girl?"

She clenched her fist around her pen, but thought better of it. She broke a piece off of the chocolate bar in her hand and popped it into her mouth, silently thanking some higher power that it wasn't someone her age standing over her to ask her that question when she had looked up from her notebook. Had it been, a there would have been blood spilled.

"Yes," she said, attempting to keep her voice calm as she swallowed her chocolate, "but it's impolite to call people crazy just because they're forced into therapy."

"Really?"

"Yes. Now. You know that cake-eater you hang around with so often?"

"L?"

"Yes, that's it. Thanks for that."

At that, she bent her head back down to her notebook, aware that the blond kid was now sitting on the couch next to her. She decided to keep writing anyway, even though she did really wish he would leave her alone.

_––––––––––––––––  
__Ah. L. That was it. Thank you miniature blond person. Now go away. Oh, yea, I probably should say 'go away' out loud rather than write it down, I don't think my pen actually talks. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but it's definitely not as loud as my mouth. Yeah. Moment, please.  
__––––––––––––––––_

Alpha looked over at the blond kid, who was looking curiously at the chocolate bar in her hand. What was the matter with him? Had he never seen anyone eat chocolate before? She was sure that he had to have seen L, with his insanely overactive sweet tooth, eat a chocolate bar before. It was getting annoying.

"Would you go away?" she snapped.

Oh no. There was immediately a problem with that action. She quickly scribbled a sentence in her journal before closing it again.

_––––––––––––––––_  
_Whoops. Made him cry. Back in a jiffy.  
––––––––––––––––_

Alpha wasn't used to dealing with small children, especially not small children that she had just made cry by complete accident. How was _she_ supposed to know that short people would start sniffling when they were instructed to leave? Now his bottom lip was doing that trembling-pouty thing and he was starting at his knees. It was an utterly pitiful sight to see, and it almost made her a little teary. _Almost_. She _didn't_ cry, and she _wouldn't_ cry, not for anything. She did flinch a little at the sight.

"Er…" she started. "I'm sorry. I… uh… here," she said quickly, handing him the rest of her chocolate bar.

He sniffled. "Ch-chocolate?" he said, looking at the wrapper. "Wh-what's that?"

Her eyes widened. He didn't know what _chocolate_ was? "You don't know what _chocolate _is?"

Her voice always had a tendency to mimic her thoughts before they could be filtered through her mind. It got her into trouble quite often. The boy shook his head no, staring at the chocolate bar being held in front of him. Carefully, as though fearing it could be poisoned, he broke off a piece from it, examined it closely, and then put it in his mouth. His sniffling stopped as he took the rest of the chocolate bar from Alpha.

_Ah, the wonders of bribery,_ Alpha thought, grinning in her triumph as she watched him practically inhale the rest of the chocolate bar.

"I like chocolate…"

He stared at the empty wrapper in amazement. She held back a giggle. Alright, so little kids _could_ be adorable.

"Lots of people do," she said matter-of-factly. "I honestly believe it should be in the list of the Seven Wonders of the World. It's a good energy booster, too, and it tastes a lot better than any of those disgusting energy drinks that're out. Anyway, what's your name, kid?"

"Mello," he said, still looking at the chocolate. He looked up. "What's _your_ name?"

"Alpha. Alpha Epsilon, to be more specific. Not my real name, of course, considering you have to have an alias here for whatever reason."

"Those're Greek letters," he said. "For 'A' and 'E'. How come?"

_Jesus, the kids here are too smart…_ she thought to herself. _That's absolutely maddening. Four year olds are **not** supposed to know the Greek Alphabet…_

"It sounded cool," she said with a shrug.

She opened her journal back up as she half listened to the blond child who was now babbling at a thousand words a minute. The chocolate couldn't have _already_ kicked in. That was simply impossible; it had _never_ worked that fast on her.

_––––––––––––––––  
Alright, that was Mello that I made cry. One of the little four year olds at the orphanage. He follows L around like a puppy. I gave him chocolate and he stopped. He had apparently never had chocolate before. How anyone has never had chocolate before, I cannot fathom. Poor kid, four years of life without knowing the wonders of chocolate. He didn't even know what chocolate was. Fancy that. He won't leave me alone now, so I should probably stop writing for a bit_….

_Well, 'til next time, book._

_- Alpha Epsilon_

_Huh. Why did I just sign my name? Good lord, am I weird. No wonder they thought I needed a therapist._  
_––––––––––––––––_

Alpha closed her journal and set it next to her. She tucked her hands behind her head and crossed her legs as Mello continued to babble about random things, his words breaking the speed of sound as he did so. She knew chocolate could make small children hyper, but she had never imagined the extent at which it could do so. Of course, it seemed he was generally like this with L, too. That meant this was normal for Mello. So… what would happen when the chocolate kicked in…? She shuddered at such a scary thought, pushing it out of her mind. Maybe he would find L again before the chocolate kicked in.

"Mello," she said.

"Huh?"

"Mellow out."

"Hey!" he said energetically and pointing at something on her face, obviously ignoring her advice. "Where'd you get that scar on your cheek?"

Alpha reached up and touched the smooth patch of skin. "Ah. Tha'. Knife fight two years ago."

"Really?? Why'd you get into a _knife_ fight?"

"I was in street gangs before I got here," she said. "For four years. I started in one when I was eleven, my older brother was in it and I accidently found out. Then I switched to another when I was twelve. That one recently got busted by the police, and they found me, a poor little fourteen year old girl who'd been taken advantage of by the big-bad street gang, and they tossed me in here after an IQ test."

"Wow…" the blond boy said in awe. "But how come you're here? Couldn't you have just gone back home?"

She gave a wry smile as she stared up at the ceiling. The little boy didn't know what had happened, so Alpha couldn't be mad at him. Telling him exactly what happened might have scared him, so she figured she should probably just give a brief explanation, if anything. As he had asked and Mello seemed like the type who would like badgering people for answers, she knew she would have to give some answer.

"Well," she said slowly, choosing her words carefully, "my parents and my brother passed away a couple years ago, so I didn't have anywhere to go. I'm not sure exactly why I'm _here_, except for the IQ test, which I still don't know the results of personally."

"Oh," he said.

He continued his endless ranting about nothing in particular. She would nod and give a word of acknowledgement occasionally to make him think she was listening. Even if Alpha had tried to, she probably wouldn't be able to distinguish one word from another. She wondered how in the world his normal idol could stand being followed around by such a loud child all day. As she was wondering, she heard a voice.

"_There_ you are!"

She looked forward. Alpha flinched slightly at the sight of Roger brandishing his cane threateningly in her direction. Mello quieted down and surveyed the scene with interest, chocolate wrapper still crumpled in his hands. Alpha had left Roger's office around fifteen minutes ago without permission while he was scolding her for setting off firecrackers in the front gardens (how was _she_ supposed to know that Roger didn't like being awoken by loud noises that sounded like gunfire?) and hid herself in the least likely place for her to be found; the game room. Unfortunately, he had found her.

"What are you doing in here?" he yelled at her. "Get back to my office! You haven't been given your punishment yet!"

"By all means, Roger," she said satirically, standing up from the couch with her notebook in her hands as she toyed with the rosary hanging down from her neck, "it can't be good for you to yell at such a young and _unstable_ teenager, can it?"

_Thwack_. She flinched as the cane struck her in the knees sharply, but didn't yell out in pain as she wanted to. Swearing at him would have just gotten her into more trouble.

"Do _not_ be a smart aleck! _Get back to my office this __**instant**__!_"

"Jesus, don't get your diaper in a bunch, I'm going!" she said.

She did a well placed jump over the cane as it swung at her and took off in a fast sprint from the room, knowing well that Roger couldn't keep up. She made it into the main sitting room on the other side of that wing of the orphanage, where Roger's office led off to, unable to help grinning to herself as she heard yells issuing from the halls behind her. She strolled leisurely over to the door of his office, the eyes of fmany of the other children – younger, her age, and older – upon her, all the owners of those eyes having known that she had committed an unforgivable crime in walking away from Roger in the middle of one of his rants. She opened the door and walked in, then, deciding to see how much more trouble she could get into, she locked the door behind her. What was even better was that she saw his keys to the office sitting on his desk. She stood against the wall next to his desk. Minutes later, she heard the doorknob start to turn and halt itself. It happened a few more times.

"Alpha!" came Roger's old, decrepit, infuriated voice. "Unlock this door!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she called back. "You must be turning it the wrong way or something!"

She smirked at the sound of sniggers of the other children from outside.

"Quiet, all of you!" Roger yelled. "I am not the only person here with a key into this office, Alpha!"

"Then go get Mr. Watery," she said. "I think that's what you call him, right?"

"Watari," Roger corrected impatiently. "And I plan to!"

She heard him hobble away from the door. With a grin, Alpha walked back over to the door, unlocked it, and then walked back over to stand against the wall next to Roger's desk with her arms crossed. She could hear the excited chatter of many of the other children outside the door of the office, many of them most likely wondering what kind of trouble she would get into for _this_ stunt. Considering her firecrackers had set one of the rosebushes on fire (which, despite Roger's belief, had been a _complete_ accident), she was definitely going to get it good. Roger believed that the harsher the punishment, the better. Watari believed that too harsh of a punishment would cause the child being punished to act more defiantly, and not harsh enough of one would make them think they could get away with anything. Alpha was quite glad that Roger had decided to get Watari. That meant that she at least wouldn't be sentenced to scrubbing all of the toilets in the place with tooth brushes for the rest of her life.

It was another five, maybe ten minutes of bored waiting before Roger returned with Watari. Alpha could hear him explaining what was going on from outside the door, when Watari opened the door without unlocking it. She looked over boredly.

"I told him he was turning it the wrong way, sir," she said innocently. Alpha had more respect for Watari than Roger; Roger was unfair for the simple reason that he disliked children of all ages, so she wasn't civil with him at all.

"It _was_ locked," Roger said sternly. "The girl must have unlocked it after I left the main room."

"'The _girl_' has a name," she said impatiently. "It is 'Alpha.' Please use it when referring to her."

"Alpha," Watari said, "I'm afraid your punishment will have to be a bit harsh."

"That's understandable."

"For the next month, you will be cleaning up the front gardens at the end of every day. Do you have any problems with that?"

"Not one, sir," she said. "Quite fitting, if you ask me. Although I think it would also be fitting that I should have to pay for the rose bush that caught fire, but I'm not complaining."f

Alpha was aloud to leave after she was given another long lecture about setting her priorities straight and treating her elders with respect by Roger. Not wanting to be bothered by anyone, she went up the stairs and to her room. Of course, it probably would have been wise to have locked her door when she had gone upstairs. Or shut it, for that matter. After a few minutes of surfing the internet boredly on the computer in her room, then managing to hack the system and unblock a few websites she particularly liked that had been blocked by the orphanage, she glanced up to see a short blond watching the computer screen.

"You know how to unblock things??" he asked. Mello had apparently been standing there for quite a while.

"Yes," she said.

"Wow… L hasn't even gotten through the firewall they put up this time…"

"'Zat so?" she said vaguely, scrolling through an online store of body jewelry that had previously been blocked

Mello looked at the webpage, then at her left arm.

"Is that real?"

She looked down to see he was pointing at the skull tattoo on her arm. "That? Yeah, got it two years ago. One of my friends does them. I've got one more on my stomach, but this one's my favorite of the two."

"How come there's an Omega symbol on it? The other two are your name, right?"

She almost flinched at the question, but managed to maintain her composure. "'Omega' was my brother. Not his real name, obviously, but that's what 'e went by."

"Oooh. Okay. What's that?" he asked, pointing at something on the computer screen.

Alpha spent the next half hour explaining to the curious child what each of the piercings the page she was on was for, except for a couple that could bring up some inappropriate questions (such as "Why would someone want to pierce _that??_"), which she promptly lied about. She hoped dearly that he'd start following L around again tomorrow, or curiosity would end up killing a lot more than just cats. It would also start killing Greek alphabet letters.

"Heeey," he said when she finally finished explaining what a labret piercing was. "Do you have any more chocolate?"

_One more bar couldn't hurt the kid…_ she thought to herself. _I don't think anyone could turn into as much of a chocoholic as me…_

"Yeah," she said. "There's a pack under my bed. You can take one, it's easy to get sick off too much of…"

She trailed off her sentence when she looked over to see that the miniscule blond had magically teleported halfway under her bed. Shaking her head, Alpha went back to her computer, _really_ hoping that this ball of energy would be bouncing around L again soon rather than her.


	2. Nightmares and Memories

_Oh.  
My.  
FUCKING.  
__**GOD!!**__  
I wrote this entire chapter last night. ENTIRE DAMN THING!!  
And my computer fucked up and wouldn't let me save it!!  
I was like gaihFHSGFKODREWS!!  
Yeah. Like that. Ya know what I mean?_

_So here I sit, rewriting the entire.  
Damn.  
Thing._

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything dealing with Death Note except a couple graphic novels, but I don't own the rights to those._

_Warnings: Profanitiesssssss (in the AN too (see above AN to understand (too many effing parentheses))) and very mild descriptions of violence – nothing too bad, don't panic. Oh. And flashbacks, some of which are kinda sad._

* * *

_Hola. Me llamo es Alphabetazetadeltapsiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. Yeah. Not really. It's just Alpha. Of course, you should know that from where I signed my name like a retard on my last entry. Mm-hmm. Even though that was about a half of a week ago, yeah. Sorry about that. I know my therapist told me to write in you every day, but a certain blond child who is now addicted to chocolate almost as bad as me (whoops!) has started following me around like a lost puppy. Albeit, a lost puppy that steals chocolate, but a lost puppy nonetheless. Gah. Did I just use the word albeit? That word irks my nerves. As does the word "irk." -eyetwitch- Okay. Better now._

_I don't understand why that kid's following me around so much. I'd say it was just for chocolate if he didn't ask so many gosh dern questions, you know? I don't want to make him cry again by telling him to go away, that depressed me. "Thou shalt not blubber" is the eleventh commandment to my religion. Called Alphaism. Yeah. You know it. Anyway. I hope poor Mello doesn't look up to me. I'm no role model. I am __definitely__NOT__ a good influence. I've got more holes in my head than Swiss cheese and I'm planning on three more soon. Not to mention, I was kinda in a couple street gangs? I've been in shootouts before. I mean, come ON. I've __shot__ people. Yeah, me. I know, you were thinking I was just a bitch. Nope! You'd be bitchy, too, if you've been in the situation of "shoot or be shot" thousands of times, you know? I guess I regret it all, but it wasn't exactly my choice._

_I need to get this off my chest. Haven't told anyone about anything of it yet, so I'll just write it here. (thisoughtagivemytherapistagoodkickintheteeth -laughs evilly-)_

_It started when I was eleven. Me and my older brother – he was seventeen – were coming home from the movies – we'd gone to see an absolute gorefest of a movie that was freaking awesome, but I don't remember the name of it. I looked up to meh older brother a lot, you know. Well, as I said, we were coming home, in a car, thankfully. Had we not been, we'd both be dead. He started getting followed. This was the night I found out just what he did on the nights he didn't spend at home. My brother was in a gang. Yep. Good ol' Omega, the straight F student whose parents always grounded him who was always getting into trouble for picking on nerds. Who'd a' thunk it? Honestly, it didn't come as much of a surprise to me, considering… well, what I said before. _

_So anyway, the people in the car that started trying to run out asses into the sidewalk were members of his rival gang. We lost them and we had to report to headquarters of his gang to report the disturbance in the force just to be safe. Now, I was scared for my life when they started discussing "what to do with the girl." I "knew too much". That's gang slang for "needs to be shot in the face." My brother, being the awesome son of a bitch that he was, was high up. I'm talking right-hand man to the big boss. Second in command. If said big boss had the flu or something, that left my brother in charge. So, with his talking of my crazy-mad hacking skillz (that's not exactly how he put it, but you get the idea), I got the option of either joining a street gang or getting shot in the face. Guess what? I value my life._

_So, there I was. An eleven-year-old girl in a gang. Woot. Ness. Haha, not. I never wanted it, but it was better than the __other__ option. A year after, when I was twelve, I got to witness my first murder. Goody freaking gumdrops. See, me and my brother and another gang member were out and the other member heard a man and his wife discussing how we looked like gang members. Well, they didn't call him Crazy Jimmy for nothing. Not going into detail, but it did involve a knife and gunfire. I got a knife to the face when I tried to stop him. Complete accident, but now there's a scar on my cheek from where the bastard swung the knife out behind him and it hit me. Needless to say, when we got back to headquarters, my brother beat the fucking TAR out of him. That made me happy. So while I was in the hospital getting stitches, Jimmy was getting a shiny new set of dentures and an arm cast! _

_Now, a year after that – oh, the tragedy – my parents found out about me and my brother being in a street gang when the cops showed up at our door. Then the gang found out our parents knew and decided that they needed to be "silenced." More lesson in gang slang: silenced also means "shot in the face." And they were silenced. Unfortunately, my fecking idiot of a brother was also "silenced" when he tried to stop it from happening. And just to be cliché here, he gave me his rosary, which I still wear to this day._

_I'm going to stop there. I believe I have already mentioned that I __don't__ cry._

_Besides which, there's a blond child sitting next to me now. Back in a while.  
––––––––––––_

"'Allo," Alpha said to Mello, closing her notebook. As always, those blue-gray eyes were primarily on the chocolate bar in her hand. She laughed to herself a little, then broke a piece off and handed it to him.

"Thank you!" he piped brightly. "What's that notebook you always carry around for?"

"This?" she asked, holding up the black spiral notebook. He nodded. "This would be my psychodiary."

His head tilted slightly. "What's a psychodiary?"

"Journal," she said. "My therapist said that my writing would show some underlying meaning in my bla-da-da-psycho-mumbo-something or another. I don't know. I just know I'm supposed to write about shit in it."

"Really?" he asked interestedly. "What kind of shit?"

She bit her bottom lip to keep herself from bursting into a fit of giggles. Little kids swearing was _too_ adorable. It was just as hard not to grin even a little or maintain a serious tone. However, she managed to endure the task.

"Mello," she said slowly, trying to inject some seriousness into her tone, "you really shouldn't say that word until a bit you're older."

"Why not?"

"Well," she said, "it's a bad word. A swear word, to be specific. A lot of people take offense to it when its said."

"Oooh," he said. "Is damn a bad word too, then?"

Alpha broke off a large piece of chocolate to shove in her mouth to keep her from laughing. That was the only solution, or she would end up biting a hole through her tongue trying to stop herself. He continued on.

"I heard L say it when he stubbed his toe the other day," Mello said, "and Roger yelled at me for saying it when I accidently shut my finger in a door."

"Yes," Alpha managed to say without giggling, "damn is also a bad word. Of course, that depends on how you use it. A dam is also the thing that blocks rivers and lakes from overflowing too much, but that's also spelled differently.

"Yeah," Mello said, nodding, "that's a homophone. Two words that sound the same but mean somethin different. We learned that in English class."

Alpha managed to push the rather juvenile thought of how much the word "homophone" sounded like "homophobe" before she could laugh at it and Mello could ask what was funny. Mello had already learned about swearwords today. He didn't need to learn about homos and those who were afraid of them, too.

"Well, I would suggest you use a synonym of the word dam when referring to the river blockade," she said. "Like levee. I'm not sure it's the exact same thing, but it keeps you from getting whacked over the head with a cane."

And there he went, staring at the rest of her chocolate bar again. There was no use in resisting.

"Here…" she said with a sigh, handing it to him.

"R… really?"

"Yes."

"Th-thank you!" he said, his eyes widening as he took it from her hand

She sighed again. "Your welcome."

At the same time, she also silently damned whatever high power had decided to make small children's begging face so adorable. She also damned them for making children so pitifully saddened when instructed to go away. She sighed one last time, deciding to push the thought out of her mind to listen to Mello's random ramblings, while also thinking of ways to steal Roger's credit card to order a lip ring she was particularly fond of on one of her favorite online stores. If Roger even had a credit card…

"Heey," Mello said, "you never said what you write in your psychodiary," he said. She smiled at the use of one of her words. She was definitely going to write her own dictionary one day. "So??"

"Just different things," she said. "Nothing really interesting. I'm supposed to write in it every day so my shrink can analyze everything at the end of the week when I meet her, but I forgot for the past couple days. It's basically just a regular journal, except someone else is going to be reading it."

"Oh." He took a bite of chocolate.

"Hey," she said, deciding that there was a chance that asking him could work, "do you happen to know if Roger has a credit card?"

"A what?"

"Never mind," she said, waving her hand. She didn't feel like explaining what a credit card was. "I can ask someone else."

"Is a credit card that plastic thing that grown-ups use to pay for things when they don't have money?" he asked curiously.

"Yes," Alpha said with increased hope. The less people she had to ask, the less chance there was of this getting back to Roger. "Any idea?"

"Yeah, he keeps it in a drawer in his desk that he keeps locked," Mello said. "Why? Are you going to get it from him?"

"I was thinking of it," she said. "I was considering purchasing a labret ring online. I'd need a credit card considering how I'm probably not going to be getting any money anytime soon."

"Your lip's not pierced," Mello pointed out.

"Not yet, at least," she said. "I did my eyebrow and my nose myself, I figure I can do my lip, too. It shouldn't hurt that bad as long as I get some ice."

"But couldn't it get infected if you do it like that?"

"It could," she said, "but I'm less worried about it getting infected than I am about Roger breaking my kneecaps with his cane if he finds out what I'm planning to do with his credit card. Do me a favor and don't mention it to anyone," she added. "Don't want it getting back to Roger."

"I won't. Promise!"

"That's a good boy," she said, ruffling his hair. "Now." She stood up with her notebook. "I've got math class in a few minutes, need to get my books. I'll warn you ahead of time, Pre-calculus is going to drive you insane once you get to be my age. Oh," she added, looking back with a smirk, "I noticed that some of my chocolate stash had gone missing last night. Any ideas how that might have happened?"

His eyes widened innocently. "I'm sorry…" he said.

"It's alrigh'," she said, smiling, though she again damned that higher power in charge of the cuteness of small children. "Just be sure to ask next time."

"Okay."

* * *

_––––––––––––_  
_Holy fucking hell. Holy SHIT! I damn the people to hell who decided to say that ice would "help numb" _

_the pain of driving a needle through your fucking lip. Being the idiot that I am, I of course did it three times. Fuckity-fuck-fuck-FUCK!! It buuuuuurrrrnnnnnnnnsssssssss. Helllp meeeeee…. Good fucking lord._

_It probably would have helped if I remembered that I needed ice for the first one. I just took the needle for that one and went -shink!- right through. My god. I felt like an idiot after that. An idiot with a really __really __painful lip. I'm using old ear studs that don't fit through my ears anymore. Eighteen gauges. I now have double zeros in my ears. That's big enough to fit a pencil through, mind you. Of course, you can't comprehend that, seeing as I've only ever written in you in pen._

_Plus, you don't have a brain to comprehend things __with__._

_Cuz you're a stupid __notebook__._

_Alright. Sorry. Done insulting you. Although you don't have feelings to get insulted. Back to how fucking bad my fucking shitty-ass lip hurts. God. DAMMIT. Oh, how I hope little Mello never gets his hands on this notebook. It might traumatize him. He said "shit" today after I said it. It was the cutest thing. I had to give him a lesson in profanities and why they are bad to use in civil conversation. Kid knows the entire Greek alphabet and all the names for the letters in it, but he doesn't understand what a swear word is. I just don't get it._

_Oh, spoke with L today in math class. Turns out that despite his odd sitting position and his cake fettish (did I even spell that right?), he's not that bad of a person. I've started calling him Llama. It's short for Lambda, which is the equvillent of L in the Greek alphabet. I don't think he much appreciates it, but oh well. He'll have to live with it._

_Dammit! When the hell will I learn to lock my door? There's a certain chocoholic blond standing in front of my bed._

_We shall meet again at midnight, my papery friend.  
––––––––––––_

"Hello," Alpha said. The movement of her lips sent a shot of pain to the piercing in the middle of her bottom lip.

"You're bleeding," he said, pointing at her lip.

She smiled. "Yes, I know," she said, pressing an already bloodstained tissue to her lip.

"I thought you didn't have any lip rings?"

"These're earrings," she said, her voice a bit muffled by the tissue. She took it away when the middle piercing stopped stinging and touched it with her finger; it had also stopped bleeding. "I figured it's better than nothing until I can order a few good rings. And," she added, glancing down at her watch as she noticed he was wearing pajamas, "it's ten o' clock at night. Shouldn't you be in bed?"

His blue gray eyes lowered to his feet, his bottom lip sticking out a bit. "I had a bad dream…"

She couldn't help but hold back an "_Awwww_."

"Come'ere," she said.

He clambered quickly up onto the bed and sat down on her leg sideways. She nearly _awww_ed again in spite of herself. She also felt her eyes stinging a little. As she didn't cry – _ever_ – that was nothing to worry about. She blinked a few times, so the stinging would go away.

"You want to tell me about it?"

She received a small sniffle in response, and he put his head against her shoulder.

"I d-don't remember everything… m-my d-d-dad and m-mum were i-in it." Just from this, it was easy enough to conclude that this wasn't the everyday average _oh-no-scary-monster_ type of bad dream. "Th-there w-was a loud n-noise, l-like a g-g-gun and m – Mum y-yelled s-something a-and sh-she… a-and th-there was b-b-blood…"

She shushed him soothingly when he let out a small sob. She couldn't help but notice certain… _similarities_ between his dream and certain events involving a crazy gang member and the source of the scar on her cheek. She was probably just being paranoid.

"A-an-and th-there was a man y-yelling at th-the b-bad m

-man w-with the g-gun f-for hurting h-his s-sister. He said a b-bunch of b-b-_bad words_."

That was _too_ coincidental. _Way_ too coincidental. That couldn't have been normal. She knew the couple had just gotten out of a car parked around the side of an apartment building when the whole thing occurred. Maybe… if those had been his parents… he would have heard the whole thing if they lived in that apartment building. Even if Mello had seen faces in the dream, she knew that she herself wouldn't have been recognizable. She used to have long, black hair back then (she had detested being a carrot top for a while, but grew to accept it) and never wore make-up.

"R-Roger s-said m-m-my p-parents g-got into a c-car crash, b-but I k-k-keep having the s-same d-d-dream."

She bit her bottom lip, still fighting tears.

After reassuring him that Roger wasn't lying and the dreams would go away soon, Alpha managed to get him back to his room. She waited to make sure he would go back to sleep before hurrying back to her room and grabbing her notebook. She had a _lot_ to tell her paper buddy about now. Hooo _boy_ did she have a lot to tell it. It was bad. She almost felt responsible about what had happened. It couldn't have been a coincidence, it wasn't just her imagination, and Roger _was_ lying. She had lied, too. The odds were against those dreams stopping if that was what had really happened…. She still had dreams about her parents and her brother. She also had dreams about that night that Jimmy had killed that poor couple. This was too strange for her not to wonder about it at least a little. It was going to drive her insane if she tried to put it out of her mind; she knew it would only continue to come back.

After a few minutes of sitting on her bed, she got her hands to stop shaking for long enough to open the notebook and put her pen to it.

* * *

_Thank GOD my computer didn't spaz on me this time._

_That would have pissed me off._

_And three comments, 4 favs, one alert, and almost fifty views in the first chapter._

_I must say, thank you. That's a new record for any of my stories! :D_


	3. Ninety Nine Percent

_Oh mah goodnesh. Ah've got an effing Elton John song stuck in my head._

_-cringes-_

_Anyway. Onto the disclaimer._

_**Disclaimer**__: I don't own any Death Note stuff or things._

_**Warnings**__: Profanities, angst, llamas, breakfast cake, psychological mumbojumbo, and percentages._

* * *

_–––––––––_  
_Oh shit oh shit oh __shit__. Yeah. I'm going to have a talk with Roger tomorrow. No, Watari, I don't like Roger. Maybe L would know, he seems to know everything about this place including things that the people here aren't supposed to know -cough-fuckinghacker-cough- anywho. I guess I should probably explain._

_Mello had a bad dream. He told me about it. His mum and dad were in it._

_Wow. My handwriting is udderly (heh-heh cow-pun) dreadful when I'm trying not to cry my fucking eyes out._

_Yeah, his mum and dad were in it. He told me he heard a gun, then his mom screamed, and then there was __blood__. That made me think a little. Then he told me about the man who was yelling at the bad man who did it for "hurting his sister." I think… oh god, I don't want to think this… I think the man was my brother, and the "bad man" was Crazy Ol' Jimbo. Yeah. There's too many similarities. I want it to be a coincidence. I really, __really__ do. But I don't think it is. That scares me. Mello told me that he was told by Roger that his parents died in a car crash, but he mentioned he had this dream before._

_If this is real, I'm going to feel like its my fault. I think that if I had stopped Jimmy, they would still be alive. The only way to have stopped him would have been to have tried to, so he would have killed me and my brother would have killed him. If that had happened, then my parents might not have found out about us being in a gang, and they wouldn't have been "silenced." I'd be dead, but everyone else would be alive. If I weren't such a chicken._

_It's natural for humans to fear death. I don't feel guilty about being afraid to die. I just feel bad for being a chicken and not trying harder than I did to save that couple. Regardless of whether they were really Mello's parents or not, I wish that Jimmy would die. And even more so if they __were__ his parents. That poor kid._

_-sigh- I need sleep. Now. I'm probably going to have nightmares now, too. I just hope that poor kid doesn't. I know I said he's annoying, but he's not a bad kid, really._

_And yes, they're bloody fecking tearstains. You happy, you stupid book? You made me cry. Nice going, you papery bastard._

_Until next time._

_Oh, and on a side note to my therapist: You had BEST not tell Roger about ANYTHING I write in here. You may interpret it as you like, but if you tell Roger, I'm just going to start writing gibberish that doesn't make any sense._

_You've been warned.  
–––––––––_

Alpha shut her notebook, clipped the pen to its spiral by the cap, then threw it across the room on her floor.

"Damn that stupid book…" she thought aloud, tugging the covers on her bed up over her without so much as bothering to take off her boots. "Damn little kids…" She hugged an extra pillow to her chest so it came up to just under her nose as she turned sideways into a fetal position, her knees coming up to squish the pillow against her stomach. "Damn my stupid past…" She sniffed loudly. "Hate it here… wish I'd never got put in here… stupid orphanage… fucking assholes thinking _I_ need a bloody shrink. Granted I talk to myself more than the average person, but that's no fucking reason to give me a bloody notebook to write my _feelings_ in… just _stupid!_"

She didn't want sleep that night. She was afraid of the memories, afraid of the slideshow they would play for her on the back of her eyelids. She wasn't so much angry… and she didn't _really_ want all little kids to go to hell, especially not Mello. She had never had anyone look up to her so much, aside from the retards in the gangs she was in, but they didn't count. They weren't important to her, and she never really gave a damn about any of them except for her brother. Her stupid, _stupid_ brother who had to go and get his ass killed. _He_ was brave. He might have been a bad kid, but he was valiant. He proved that he would take a bullet for someone else in trouble. Alpha, however, was just a shell of a teenager, where inside there hid a scared little girl who would duck when faced with the gun and let someone else take a bullet for her. She knew it was bad, but she was as afraid of being brave as she was of everything else.

Amidst her thoughts and in spite of herself, Alpha fell asleep anyway. She had planned to fight _that_ tooth and nail, but she couldn't even beat sleep away from her.

She awoke early the next morning, at just around the time breakfast was starting to be served. She only changed her shirt (Iron Maiden the previous day, so she decided to change up for Queen that day from her variety of overly baggy band t-shirts). Alpha was quite thankful that she didn't remember anything she had dreamed the previous morning. She must not have had any nightmares…. That made her quite happy.

She picked up her notebook from where it had landed and grabbed her Biology book from her bookshelf, then headed downstairs, looking forward to a couple pieces of toast in the peace and quiet of the dining room at seven o' clock in the morning. However, she found that she wasn't going to be alone. Alpha sighed, setting her books on a table and moving over to the toaster in the adjacent kitchen, where she received a glare from a couple of cooks who were up early; she had taken to making her own breakfast, and they seemed to find her to be a nuisance. Meh. She didn't care. She wanted toast. Actually, waffles sounded better than toast. Dry waffles, sure. Why not? She wasn't particularly in the mood for any syrup. Or fruit. She grabbed the box of Eggos from the cabinet and pullout out a package. She would have preferred one, but there were two per package.

After popping them in the toaster, she went and sat back down at the table, looking to her right.

"You eat cake for _breakfast_?" she inquired, squinting as though her eyes could have been lying to her so early in the morning.

L looked at the cake, then at her. "It's coffee cake."

She almost cringed at the lack of any sort of tone in his voice. She wasn't sure why, but that just got to her for some reason.

"Why not just drink coffee?"

"Roger," he said. "No one under sixteen can have coffee."

"I'd dump it over his head if he told me that…" she said with a sigh. "I don't like that man at _all_. What?" she added, seeing him looking at her oddly.

"I don't believe your lip was pierced yesterday."

"That would be because it wasn't."

"It's dangerous to do it yourself. There's a high chance that they could get infected. At least sixty percent."

"I've done it before," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "Hey," she added thoughtfully, remembering what she had been planning on asking around about, "do you– shit." She stopped as she heard the sound of her waffles popping up from the toaster in the kitchen. "I'll ask in a moment."

She stood from the table and moved back into the kitchen. Avoiding the cooks, she grabbed her waffles, ignoring how badly they were burning the ever-loving _shit_ out of her fingers, and hurried back to the kitchen, setting the waffles on top of her biology book.

"You eat waffles with no syrup?"

She pursed her lips. "_You_ eat cake for breakfast."

"I was merely making an observation. There is no need for hostility."

"Too early for big words…" Alpha grumbled, picking up a waffle and taking a bite of it. "Oh, right," she said, remembering her question. "Do you have any idea why there has been a small blond child following me around for the past few days?"

"Mello? According to what he says, it is apparently because you are 'awesome.'"

"Oooh, _that's_ not good," she said, her voice mingled with nervous laughter. "It's what I expected, but it's not good. I know he used to follow you around," she said, her tone growing a little more nervous, in spite of herself. "Did he ever mention any nightmares?"

L's fork paused at his lips as his eyes swiveled over. "He's still having those?"

She nodded, setting her waffle back down on her biology book. "Came into my room at about ten o' clock last night. The fact there was blood trailing down my bottom lip probably didn't help the poor kid much." Seeing the odd look she was getting, she decided it would probably be good to elaborate. "See, I'm a vampire and I had just gotten back from a nightly prowl around town."

"That doesn't sound true."

"That's because it was really only because I had just pierced my lip and forgot about the ice for the middle one," she said. "He said it was about his parents, but Roger told him his parents died in a car crash."

L lowered his fork and pressed his thumb to his lips for a moment. "I do suppose that it's possible he's been having the dreams due to the strong psychological connection between the parent and the child. I think his subconscious mind knows what truly happened, while he consciously believes what he was told by Roger and Watari."

"So…" she said slowly, her mind not yet functioning properly enough to take in the psychological mumbo-jumbo being thrown at her, "what does that mean in English?"

L sighed. "It means that while Mello doesn't think he knows it, he really _does_ know that his parents didn't die in a car wreck."

"They didn't? What exactly _did_ happen then?"

"It's suspected that a gang member killed them, right next to the apartment building they were living in. It happened somewhere in Yorkshire, if I'm not mistaken. Two or three years ago. I know that Mello got here a year after it happened, since the youngest age you can get in is three, and he was two years old when it happened."

Yorkshire. That was where they had been…. That was where _she_ had lived. That made it much more likely.

"Mello always said there were three people there," L said.

"Yes," she said. "One being the man who killed his parents."

"Correct. The other two apparently being a brother and a sister. The sister doesn't say anything, but she's mentioned, as the brother is always yelling at the other male about hurting his 'sister' in the dreams. He never seems to remember the faces of those three, only shadows and voices. Judging by your reaction," he added, "it seems the dream troubled you more than it would have most."

"Back off," she snapped involuntarily, making his eyebrows rise behind his messy bangs. "I get analyzed enough by the bloody shrink I got assigned to, I don't need anyone else doing it."

He paused for a moment, seeming to study both her reaction and her face, his eyes squinted as he focused. He then went back to his cake. "I see."

"You _see_ what?"

"Signs of hostility at a simple observation," he said, his tones as bored as always, "meaning that you're more than likely hiding something. As you asked, there would be no point in getting angry," he added, glancing over. "That would practically be like getting angry with yourself."

Though she mumbled sardonically under her breath, she did know that he was right. She was hiding something, and there would be no point in getting angry with him. However, she couldn't help it.

"I'm not hiding anything."

"I didn't say definitely, I said more than likely," he said. "And if you are, then you would obviously say that you weren't hiding anything to make people think that you aren't."

Alpha gave a snort of laughter. "And they think _I_ need therapy…"

"Roger has suggested that I may need a psychiatrist to Watari," L said, tilting his head sideways onto one of his knees (good _God_ did he sit weird). "Watari disagrees. I am unsure of why he agreed that you might need therapy, he normally does his best to avoid it, since most children have many strange idiosyncrasies."

She blinked a few times. "Idio… synchrosies…? That sounds like synchronized swimming for idiots," Alpha mused, tapping a finger against her lip as she imagined how hysterical _that_ would be.

"It means 'quirks,'" L said. "As in weird habits."

"Oh," she said slowly. "Like the way you eat cake for every meal, never sleep, and sit really strange?"

"Yes," he said, "and also like the way you write compulsively in that notebook."

"Considering your extremely monotonous tone, I have no idea if that was an insult or not, but I _am_ inclined to take it as one."

"It was not meant to be taken as an insult, but if you see it as such, then you may."

"Well…" she said, struggling to find a half-way decent retort. _This_ was why she didn't like genius kids. "Well _you're_ a llama."

"I think you might be mistaken," L said. "You should probably read that book that you're using a plate before making such comments."

She looked down at her biology book. "Then you're a very llama-like human."

"Though I don't entirely understand how that is possible, you may think what you like."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Are you _sure_ you're human? Most humans I knew before I got here would get at least a little pissed off at being called llama-like."

"I am quite sure I am a human."

"How sure?"

"At least ninety-nine percent, but closer to one hundred."

"You're not one hundred percent sure you're human? That's not a good sign…."

"I've learned that you can never be one hundred percent sure about anything. Maybe a thousandth of a percentage away from one hundred, but never exactly one hundred."

She inadvertently tilted her head sideways at him, her eyebrow still cocked. "Y… wh… oh, bugger, I'm just going to get confused if I ask… I'll be taking my waffles elsewhere." She stood up.

She carried her waffles on top of her biography book into the main sitting room, connected directly the dining area. She sat down on her favorite couch as children were starting to pile down the stairs for breakfast. She sighed and opened her notebook, taking the pen out of its spiral spine. There was really nothing better to do that early in the morning…

_–––––––––_  
_Gah. L's a weirdo. I changed my mind about him being not-that-bad. I mean, he's only ninety-nine percent sure he's human. What. The. __Fuck__? That's just weird._

_Said some weirdo thing about having learned that "you can never be one hundred percent sure about anything." Yeah. Thanks, but I'm one hundred percent sure of my humanity, alrighty? I know I'm a human. No questions there._

_Unless I'm a Martian, of course._

_Or Plutonian. I believe I came from Pluto. Yesssshhh I doo._

_Haha. I just woke up a little bit ago. Eating a couple now-coldish Eggos. They're still pretty good. My biology book makes a good plate. Just don't tell Miss Mullen that I said so. She'd get pissed as __hell__._

_Gah. I've got that damn class with Llama, and she fucking made me sit next to him. Dammit. He may get a pencil to the jugular (if ya wanna get technical about it) if I have to say a word to him. I swear to bob. If we ever use the science lab, I've heard she makes you pair with the person you sit next to. Blarg and a half. I don't want to work with that weirdo, guaranteed good grades or not._

_I can see why Mello decided to start hangin out with me instead of Mr. Non-human Cake-eating Lack-of-sleep Sits-like-a-tard. Okay. That was a little harsh. But he's still a fucking llama, I don't care what you say, you stupid book._

_Anyway, onto more important things. It turns out Mello's dreams were… ah… based on true events. L knows about it -__somehow__- and so that means that it did happen. In Yorkshire, actually. Happened when I would have been twelve and Mello would have been two. That means that it's very likely that it __wasn't__ a coincidence that there were so many similarities._

_Getting teary-eyed. Need to stop now. I'll be back later._

_GACK!! Fucking insomniac just sat down on __MY__ couch._

_-grumbles incoherently-  
–––––––––_

Alpha shut her notebook and shot the insomniac a look of pure venom. He, however, wasn't looking in her direction, so he didn't notice. She gave a loud, irritated sigh before moving over as far as she could against the armrest of her couch cushion. He looked over at this, his head tilted slightly. She shot him another glare. His eyes narrowed slightly, but more in concentration. She felt like she was being scanned. By a computer scanner. It wasn't pleasant. She resisted the urge to throw her pen at one of his rather, owl-like large eyes.

"There is a ninety-nine percent chance that you're hiding something," he said slowly, "and a fifteen percent chance that it has to do with Mello."

Okay. Maybe she _was_ being scanned. Alpha tried to keep her expression blank, but failed horribly. Her eyes had already widened reflexively in fear that he might find out something if he kept doing this. There was another minute of silence that felt way too long for her. Her heart ran a marathon durring the wait before he made some other insanely accurate observation.

"There is a three percent chance," he continued, "that you knew how they died before he told you of his dream without knowing that they were his parents at the time."

Before she could stop herself, she gulped.

"Ten percent now," he said.

"On what grounds?" she inquired forcefully, her hotheadedness returning to her quickly.

"On the grounds of your changes in expression and subconscious reactions," he said.

"Well," she said through gritted teeth, "there's a fifty percent chance that I may drive my pen through your eye in the next thirty seconds. Willing to take the risk?"

"Yes," he said. "You call it a fifty percent chance, but it is obvious that you won't attempt it. Judging by your temper, you would have already driven your pen through my eye if you were going to."

"I– You– I– son of a bitch…"

Alpha stood up, every violent instinct in her telling her to attack him. However, her brain and its stupid _rational train of thought_ wasn't going to let her. She picked up her biology book, her journal, and what was left of her last Eggo. She gave him one last glare before walking up the stairs, quickly passing a short blond someone on the way.

* * *

_Thanks to the few fans I've got for this :)_

_I've just started it, so I didn't expect to have many fans within the first few chapter. The 7 I have now is surprising enough to me._


	4. Friend

_Whoop whoop!_

_Thanks for the comments! There's not many, but I still thank you._

_**Disclaimer**__: Me no own.  
__**Warning!**__ Profanity. And that's basically it for this chappy._

* * *

_––––––––––  
Damn that son of a bitch for putting everything into a percentage._

_That's all I can say for now. A midget followed me into my room._

_I'll explain later.  
––––––––––_

"Did you eat breakfast _already_?" Mello asked curiously as Alpha slipped her journal under her pillow. She smiled and held up her half eaten Eggo.

"Part of it," she said. "I got tired of a certain llama that speaks in percentages all the time badgering me about random things, so I came up here. Now," she said, sitting with her legs hanging over the side of the bed. She patted a spot on the mattress next to her. "You come over here. I've got to ask you something."

Mello scrambled over energetically (she wasn't sure how anyone could be hyper that early…) and climbed up onto the bed, kicking his feet into the side of the mattress since they didn't at all touch the floor.

"What?" he asked curiously.

"You remember your dream?" He nodded. "And you said you've had it before?"

"Lots of times," he said, nodding again.

"How long have you been having it for?"

"I dunno," he said, his eyes swiveling up to the ceiling in wonderment. "A long time."

"And did you ever tell L that you stopped having them?"

He looked at her, his eyes wide in surprise. After a moment, he sighed and looked at his knees, then nodded.

"I didn't want Roger to find out 'coz I was scared he'd try an' put me in therapy or something."

"W why…. Wait, was he going to tell Roger?"

Mello looked up. "You're not going to, are you?"

"N-no," she said. "Definitely not. I know you don't need therapy. I've just got to straighten a few things out with a certain llama now…"

_––––––––––_  
_Well, L now knows that if he says a word to Roger about Mello's bad dreams that he will be killed. He __says__ he wasn't going to, but I think he's lying. And apparently, according to him, my protectiveness of Mello means that there is a three percent chance that I was directly involved or witnessed the murder of Mello's parents. I hate that stupid llama and his stupid psychoanalysis abilities. Who the hell does he think he is, telling me what I have and haven't seen? Granted he's right about all of this and everything, but…_

_I'm waiting for my therapist to get here now. She's already read you, you know. Now she's just analyzing. I hope she fucking enjoys the shitload of swearing that I do._

_Ah. Here she is.  
––––––––––_

"Good evening, Alpha," she said kindly.

"Oi. 'Ow's it goin', Karen?"

As the therapist had introduced her self in the first place as Misses Karen Langston, Alpha had immediately took to calling her by her first name, mostly because she found it amusing that the therapist always wrote something down on her pad of paper every time Alpha did this. The therapist sat down in the chair across from the couch Alpha was seated on with her legs crossed.

"I noticed you were writing in your journal when I came in?"

"Obviously."

She sighed and scribbled something else down onto her notepad. Alpha grinned.

"Now," Karen said, "let's talk about some of the things that you wrote about. One of the first things was about your dislike towards the orphanage you've been staying in."

"Yes."

"What are some things you dislike about it?"

Alpha sighed, rolling her eyes, mostly only to see if Karen would write anything on the little pad she had with her. When she didn't, Alpha decided to answer the question.

"Well, first off, the caretaker Roger. I detest him to the very core of his being."

"For any particular reason?"

"Well, for one thing, he co-runs an orphanage, but he hates children."

"Why would you believe he hates children?"

"Well, aside from the fact that he glares at us all the time and gives extremely harsh punishments to us for everything, he walks around mumbling, 'I hate these bloody kids' all the time."

"Mm-hmm… and you said he co-runs the orphanage?"

"Yes," she said. "The other caretaker is Watari, I believe I heard someone mention he was either the owner or the founder of the place. I don't have any issues with him at all. He's quite nice. So you can rule out that I have issues with authority, because I could tell that's what you were thinking."

Karen smiled. "You're quite a smart girl."

"I ought to be, I've got an IQ of two hundred something. I live in an orphanage for genius kids. It all fits in quite well with that theory."

"Do you mind letting me see your journal, Alpha?"

Karen scribbled something onto her pad of paper. Alpha grinned at this action. She wasn't sure why she found disturbing this woman so amusing, but she did. Alpha held out her notebook across the coffee table situated between the two of them. She watched as Karen flipped through it, skimmed over the most recent entry from a few minutes ago, and then flipped back to the front.

"You mentioned another child at the orphanage called 'L,'" she said, "who it seems you have some problems with?"

"Many problems…" she grumbled. "The kid speaks in percentages and confuses the ever-loving crap out of me. I tried to befriend him, but he's just… strange. I honestly don't know what it is about him. He just plain weirds me out. He's too smart for one thing. There is a borderline between genius and insanity, and he's about two inches from stepping over that border."

"Mm-hmmm…" Karen wrote something on her paper again. "Now… you also mentioned that there is a young child at the orphanage who seems to have taken to you rather well?"

Alpha couldn't help but smile a little. "Yeah. I kind of feel bad about it, since it's my fault for giving him chocolate. I'm not the best person for someone to look up to as a role model. You read my journal, you should know."

_––––––––––  
That stupid bitch!! She told me that I only had to do the journal thing one more time!! NOoooooOooOoOoo… journal ish me frennnnndddd…. Apparently, she wants me to do this journal thing once every year for her. That's depressing. And they wonder why I need a therapist. Well, there it fucking is! It's because therapy depresses me. When depressed, people think "oh, somebody needs therapy." Then I get stuck in the thing that depressed me in the first place! ARGH!!_

_Anyway. She seems to think I'm 'disturbed.' Despite telling her not to tell Roger, she told him. Everything. Yep. Now Roger's discussing whether or not poor little Mello needs therapy. I hate that stupid bitch. Meaning my therapist. And I can't wait until she reads this. I fucking hate her and her journal taking-back tattle-telling ways. I hope Watari doesn't agree that Mello needs therapy. That would just confuse him. All he needs is someone to look after him, and I'm there for that. I adore that kid. It's like having a little brother. I always wondered how my brother might have viewed me with how I looked up to him. I guess it would be as an annoying chocoholic little tyke that he couldn't help but love._

_Come to think of it, I think he gave me my first chocolate bar. Our dad was a dentist. It effing sucked. We had to hide chocolate like it was illegal drugs. I picked up calling my large amount of chocolate bars as my "chocolate stash" from my brother. I know Mello's birthday is in December -holyshit a month away-. I think I'll kidnap one of the older kids so I can go out and buy him loads of chocolate so he can start his own stash. _

_You know what's a kick in the teeth? My therapist about has me talked into telling Llama about how I witnessed Mello's parents' deaths. I'm glad that she didn't tell Roger about that little bit. But since L has about guessed it anyway, this ought to confirm his suspicion. Considering I think he might think that I was the one who did the slaughtering, I probably should let him know I didn't. I'm not a murderer… er… scratch that. I'm not a murderer of innocent people. I can't believe that son of a bitch would think that I am. _

_That's one thing that I never liked about being in a gang. The assumptions. If you're in a gang, people automatically assume that it was your choice. They never consider you might have gotten shanghaied into it. If you're in a gang, people automatically assume that you'll shoot someone if they looked at you funny. I only ever shot in self defense. People think you're bad, that you don't have a conscience. Even though the only person a shot fired from my gun ever killed was in a rival gang, I cried my fucking ass off. People do some things for different reasons._

_Look at me, getting all sentimental and shit. I think I'm going to cut this short and go find L. He's usually up around now eating cake all by himself in the main sitting room. If I can manage to befriend him, he's allowed to leave this place on his own, so I could kidnap him and drag him off so I can buy Mello a birthday present._

_I still have to write in you for a few more days, so hang in there. We're not going to be separated quite yet. I won't be able to tell you about Mello's response to his present when I get it though. I'm sorry.  
––––––––––_

Alpha shut her journal, hooking her pen to its spirally spine as she had grown accustomed to doing. She then set off out her door and downstairs to find a certain cake-eating, insomniac llama. As she had expected, she found him sitting alone in the main sitting room. Absolutely pitiful. He had been at the orphanage for God only knew how long and he was always alone. Always. There was the occasional four year old that took to following him around, but that was about it. She herself hadn't made any friends yet, really, but that was because she had been purposely hostile to almost everyone. Now – though the thought made her cringe – she was going to attempt to befriend the weirdest person there.

As Alpha sat down on the couch, she received a rather reproachful, precautious look. This was to be expected. She had been fairly mean to him since that morning. If fact, she had been so uncivil with him that she felt a little bad about it, especially considering he was slightly frightened about being alone in the same room with her now. So it seemed he was, at the least.

"Look," she said with a sigh, "I'm sorry about treating you like scum for the entire day, but I don't like being accused of things. I get really hostile about it." He continued giver her that reproachful look. She sighed. "I'm really sorry. Honestly."

He raised his eyebrows. "Is that all you wanted to say?"

"No…" she said. "In advance, I don't like being told 'I told you so' either, so don't even start that. Okay?"

"Okay…"

"I'm going to start by saying I've never even thought of killing an innocent person."

"But you have thought of killing someone who isn't?"

"I have killed someone who isn't, but they shot at me first, in my defense." His expression became even more suspicious at this. "I was in a street gang before I got here. Okay? It wasn't my choice. I was given the option of either join or die."

He nodded. "So this is about Mello's parents?"

"Yes," she said through gritted teeth, beginning to get annoyed with his tone… or lack of thereof. "It was about a year after I was forced to join on fear of death. I would have been killed if it weren't for my brother, since he was second in command in that gang. What happened to Mello's parents happened a year after I joined. I don't remember why, but my brother, another member of the gang, and I were all hanging out in an alley one night. There was a fairly young couple that had just parked along the side and got out of the car, probably because they lived in the apartment building that they had parked next to. They were walking past us and the man said to his wife that we looked like gang members, really quietly. The guy we were with heard them. Being notorious for his temper, he shot the man and slit the woman's throat. I had made an attempt to talk some sense into him while he was threatening the woman, and he swung his arm back and –" Alpha ran a finger across the scar on her cheek. "– I got that as a reward for my efforts. Had to get stitches. My brother beat the shit out of the guy who did it. He got dentures and an arm cast. Whereas, Mello's parents got the worst end of it and they were the least deserving."

"That's why in his dream, Mello heard someone yelling at someone who he called 'the bad man' for hurting his sister," L said. She nodded. "I figured if there were three people in that dream besides Mello's parents and you were indeed one of them, you would have obviously been the sister."

"That would make sense…."

He looked seriously at her for a moment, that scanning look that disturbed her more than anything in the world. She was beginning to think that he actually could see into her mind.

"Your parents…" he said slowly. "Something related to that gang happened with them, I'm assuming?"

"Wh… how do you come to that conclusion?"

"Well, when you spoke of your brother, you mentioned he was in second command of that gang, with a particular emphasis on the word 'that'. That means you had been in another, or you would have simply referred to it as 'the gang.' Considering how highly you speak of your brother when you do talk about him, I doubt you would leave to join another if he wasn't in it, or if you didn't have a good reason to."

"Y…" She looked at his eyes, trying to look for some sign of a scanning laser within the black circles. She saw none. "How do you do that?"

"Analyzation."

"But how?"

"You're avoiding the subject matter at hand," L said. "That means there is over a fifty percent chance that I'm correct."

"There's a one hundred percent chance you're correct, but that's not the bloody point!"

"Yes it is, actually," he said. "You changed the subject a moment ago."

She sighed. "I don't want to argue…" she said despairingly. "Fine. My parents found out about me and my brother being in a street gang, the gang found out and decided to kill them. My brother got in the way and got his ass killed as well, and I ran off and joined another gang to help bring the one who killed my parents, which we did, and then we got caught shortly after, which is why I'm fucking sitting here!"

She didn't like talking about those things. Her head was pounding and her eyes were stinging, and she felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Alpha doubled over, putting her forehead on her palms and resting her elbows on her knees. She snapped her eyes shut in an attempt to ease the burning feeling on them. Talking to him had been a bad idea. She should have known he'd do this to her. He had a future career in either psychology or investigation if he was this good at getting people to admit things. She couldn't think of a job that would pay a person to make others cry – he seemed to be awfully good at that…

"Are you–"

"Yes I f-fucking am and if you even th-think about f-finishing that question I'm going to t-tear your hea-head off!"

She felt a tear drop onto her leg through one of the holes in her jeans. This really was not her week. Alpha had refrained from this whole emotional breakdown thing for years, and now everything that she had been attempting to hide from was coming back to bite her in the ass one last time. Or, at least she hoped that this would be the last time. First, she met the child of the couple she could have saved from being murdered. Now, genius-boy was assuming things about her past that were somehow, miraculously, spot-on right. She wasn't sure what was going on or why it had to be going on like this, but it was, and it was deathly annoying and even more depressing.

She felt the couch cushions rise and then sink again, and she felt those eyes upon her again, staring into her brain for what had to be the hundredth time since she got there. There was an uncomfortable silence for a minute that seemed to last for hours.

"You don't need a therapist."

Alpha looked over at him. Her eyes even felt puffy to her, and she was sure her eyeliner was smudged terribly. She felt like she looked like she had been crying. If that were true, then people would know if they saw her…. That in itself was actually far more annoying than the absolute monotonousness of his stare.

"Oh really?" she said, narrowing into a glare. She wasn't sure if he was taunting her or not, but she had a feeling he might have been. But then… his stare wasn't quite as blank as usual. There was something else in it. It wasn't malice or amusement or anything of the sort that would have indicated he was picking on her. It was… worry?

"Yes," he said. "Did you ever tell her about your parents?"

"She read it in the stupid book she made me write in, but I wasn't going to tell her anything else about it. She's a stupid lying bitch…"

"Then you don't need therapy," he said. "That should be obvious to anyone. You do need to talk about it, but considering you don't trust the therapist you were given and you probably wouldn't trust any other therapists, it isn't therapy you need. You just need someone to talk to."

Alpha gave a sigh and stared intently at her knees. "A friend," she said through gritted teeth. "I bloody know that's what I need. No one likes me because I'm a little bit aggressive…"

"Aggressive?"

"Oh, don't fucking rub it in!" she said. "That's just rude…"

"You seem more paranoid than aggressive. Or scared."

"Stop analyzing me, it's annoying."

"Paranoid, definitely," he said. "You seem to be paranoid that I'm going to find out more by analyzing you. You're being aggressive about trying to stop me from doing so, but you aren't aggressive just for the sake of being tormenting, it's simply an involuntary reaction that expresses your paranoia of others."

"I just told you to stop analyzing me. Why don't you listen?"

"Because I'm trying to figure something out."

"Oh? And what would that be?"

"Why you don't seem to believe that you would be a good person for Mello to look up to." She looked at him, her head tilted to the side. "Most people would have considered someone like your brother a bad role model, correct?"

"Y… yes… but he really wasn't."

"Then how is your situation now any different?"

Her eyes narrowed into a glare. "Stop doing that."

"Wh… what?"

"Being right about every damn thing…" Her eyes widened back to their normal state. "But… thank you. I did need a friend." He blinked a few times, seeming to not comprehend. She sighed. The geniuses were always total social recluses. "Meaning you?"

His eyes widened in surprise. "Oh," was all he said.

She rolled her eyes. "Have you never had a friend before?" He shook his head no. "Ah. Finally. Something I'll be better than you at."

_––––––––––  
Sheh-SHAH! I'm better than Llama at something. That's awesome._

_I told him virtually everything. Even the stuff my therapist couldn't get me to talk about. And I cried like a baby. The asshole made me cry. Yes. Then I declared him my friend and confused the shit out of him. He's apparently never had a friend before._

_Alright. I admit he did actually help me. I don't feel so bad about Mello looking up to me anymore. And -notfuckingadmittingittohim- getting all of that off of my chest actually does make me feel a lot better. I'm still better than him at being a friend though._

_Zing!_

_I think this'll be the last time I write in you, paperfriend/psychodiary. Until next year, I mean. I just don't think I'll feel the need to between now and my next session with my therapy person._

_Farewell!  
––––––––––_

Alpha clipped her pen back to the spiral on the notebook after closing it. She lay back on her bed, still wearing her clothes from that day, boots and gloves included. It was late now. Nearly midnight. A few hours since she had spoken with L. She didn't feel like changing into pajamas that night, much less removing her boots. She could sleep like that. As long as she didn't wake up in the middle of the night with sore feet, she would be absolutely fine. She was in a genuinely good mood for the first time in almost five years and nothing could take that from her.

* * *

_Before anyone asks, this **isn't** the end of the story._

_I'm going to do this in sets. About 3-4 chapters per year at The Wammy's House until the end of the story._

_I actually already wrote an epilogue :)_


	5. Blasphemic

_Not to rant, but I'm __**soooo**__ effing pissed right now. Blarg._

_I'm mostly writing this to help me calm down so I don't go to my dad's house and behead him and his whore/mygodmother/mymom'sOLDbestfriend/my"honoraryaunt" with a butterknife._

_Freaking fucking hate them. RRRRG._

_Anyway. Story. Yeah. Calms me down. Okay. - -cuts off homicidal mode for the moment–_

_**Disclaimer**__: I don't own Death Note or anything. Or a Death Note. But I do own a pretty sharp dagger and a box of cheez-its. But I don't own the rights to the companies that made them. I also don't own the rights to "American Pie" by Don McLean. I don't own a lot of things._

_**Warnings**__: Profanities, traumatized gamers, six year olds, sheep, llamas, eucalyptus, bamboo, pandas, mostly the same as usual._

* * *

_––––––––––  
I GOT MY PAPER BUDDY BACK!!_

_It's been over a year. I'm sixteen now. I know I was 14 when I last talked to ya, but my birthday was all of two weeks away when I was last writing in it. At the moment, we're in April. Mello's six now and he's got a roommate that he drags around everywhere that's a couple months younger than him, he just got to the orphanage a few months ago on a videogame scholarship, of all things. Well, I'm calling it a videogame scholarship, anyway. He got in here because of how good he is at videogames. Of all sorts. RPG, war strategy, puzzle, he can beat __anyone__ at damn near any video game you can name. And he's got this weird thing for goggles. Always wears a pair of orange ones. Strange._

_I figure I should keep you in the loop of what's been going on in our year old separation. Let's see… ah. In the age range of children ten and below, Mello __was__ number one up until two months ago. When a new kid showed up. This kid's four years old, I believe, a little over one and a half years younger than Mells. Mello's starting to develop an inferiority complex over this -IblameL,he'sabadinfluence- whole mess. But Near's about as pretentious as a four year old can be (in my opinion at least) and he takes quite a bit of pride in all of his praises (at least, as much pride as a sheep can take), and I swear to God he can put a jigsaw puzzle together in two and a half seconds (which is fecking wieuuurd). So, in my opinion, it's not __so__ bad that Mello picks on him so much._

_Now, for the children ranging above ten years old, __I'm__ number two. See the irony? And __guess__ who number one __still__ is. Granted, he's my friend, so I don't torment him like Mello does with Near…. Much._

_Alright, so I __did__ attempt to push him out of his chair in chemistry class the other day when he got a fucking A+ on a test in which we had to name __EVERY__ FECKING ELEMENT in the Periodic Table which __no human being__ should be capable of doing (proving more for my testimony that he is, indeed, a llama. Or possibly a panda. I'm not sure anymore.), but that's not the same!_

_Much as I pick on him, though, he's still the only friend I've got in this place. Which makes me kind of sad that we're both basically graduating from our schooling here this year, and there's already plans being made for him. He's going to be a detective. I don't know what the hell I'll be doing. I think I'm going to find out if I can stay here and just help out with everything. I'd miss Mello Yello and Goggle Boy if I left._

_I have younger siblinnggssss. Yay!_

_And to think I used to hate kids. Not quite to the extent that Roger does, considering how he thinks all little kids should die. Don't worry, Roger, we all wish __you'd__ die, too! Fecking son of a bitch that he is. Watari's going to be working as L's associate when he turns all secret agent. So the only cool person that works here is gonna be gone. And that, my friends, is reason to cry._

_Or just sniffle a bit._

_Did you know Watari is also an inventor and a Grade-A sniper? Bet you didn't. Considering how you're a book and all. With paper. Paper ≠ brains. Paper equalsh shtooopid. Not really. I actually missed you, my paper pal. As much as I __can__ miss a notebook, at least._

_Oh, I've got visitors. One frustrated blond child dragging along a… __depressed__ and for some reason Game Boy-less redhead? Maybe not depressed. Maybe pissed off? Now sure. But still. Looks like problems.  
––––––––––_

Alpha yawned and sat up on her bed, looking at the two. It was fairly early in the morning, about eight o' clock and as everyone in the orphanage was on an Easter Break from lessons, there was no reason for them to be up. Mello practically had to drag Matt over to the bed by his arm.

Reading over the old entries in her psychodiary had given her insight into just how much the chocoholic blond had changed. He was growing to be quite satirical compared to how he had been a year and a half ago. Besides this, he was actually a bit taller than her knee now (but she could still call him midget, so big whoop). His hair had grown out a bit from its old bowl cut (and he had recently informed Roger that if any barber attempted to change this, they'd get their finger cut off with their own scissors). He also seemed to have taken quite a liking to the color black. Which was _so_ not her fault. That was probably L's fault, too. The bastard.

His roommate Matt was a bit taller than him and had sort of a messy-looking bowl cut, but his hair was dark red, to go with those absurd orange goggles. He was almost never seen without his Game Boy, and he was the only person she had met who had ever managed to beat Tetris. He seemed to prefer t-shirts and blue jeans to any other clothing, and he seemed to prefer videogames to people. It halfway made her wonder if he was aware of where he was half the time when Mello was dragging him around all over the place.

Right now, things were different, though. Matt had to be perfectly aware of where he was, as he had _no_ handheld videogame system playing Tetris music that she would have to blast out of her head with "American Pie" just to get that song stuck in her head instead. For some reason, it seemed to be the only song that could play at a volume above the Tetris music in her head. That was curious. But that wasn't the point. The point was that there was a very depressed, videogame-less redhead in her room that she was probably about to be forced to counsel.

"Troubled?" she asked with raised eyebrows, looking between the two.

"Yes!" Mello said. "He stayed up all night playing videogames on that Nintendo thing and I'm not sure why, but he's not doing anything and now he's refusing to play _any_ videogames." Matt sighed in response. "And he's doing that too much!"

Oh. That meant _something_ was wrong. Matt _refusing_ to play videogames was like Mello refusing to eat chocolate. It just wasn't supposed to happen, and when it did happen, it could worry anyone. Was he possibly sick? He didn't look too overly sick…. It seemed impossible that he could have lost a game – he could beat _her_ at any game and had proved this various times for his own amusement – though something like that could have obviously put him into this bad of a mood.

"Which Nintendo?"

"Wh… what's that got to do with anything?" Mello asked, looking between the two.

"Super Nintendo…" Matt grumbled. He definitely sounded irritated.

"What game?"

"Final _fecking_ Fantasy…"

"Language, Matty," she said, laughing. "I take it you lost?"

"Yes!"

"Is that really a reason to get this dramatic?" Mello said, looking at the gamer. He received a glare of pure evil in return. "Obviously it is…"

"Mello," Alpha said, trying hard not to laugh, "think about this for a moment. What would your reaction be if you got food poisoning from a chocolate bar?"

His eyes widened in utter horror. "Don't _even_ go there."

"Exactly," she said. "Which Final Fantasy?"

"Six…" Matt grumbled, glaring at the floor in his frustration. "And I was using bloody _cheat codes_…"

"Take the cheat codes off and give it another go."

"But I _can't_–"

"You're conscience was getting at you because you _cheated_ on a _videogame_." She said the words so dramatically that it made him flinch a little. Her brainwashing techniques always worked. "It's _blasphemic_. Doesn't it go against everything you believe in?"

"S… sort of."

"Then take the cheat codes off and go try it again."

He sighed in resignation, turned, and walked out the door. Mello watched him walk out, and then looked at Alpha, a look of confused shock taking over his expression.

"It was _that_ simple? _How_ did you manage to figure that out in _three_ minutes?"

"I guess I've picked up a few tricks from my therapist," she said, her tone a little sour. "If I didn't have to see her every day, then I wouldn't have to worry about that happening. Besides, I'm not called the second smartest here for nothing."

Mello sighed, his look of shock suddenly turning to exasperation. "Yeah, I s'pose…"

Alpha flinched a little. Now she was going to have to cheer up another miniature person. That was going to be fun – two depressed six year olds in one morning. Her mention of her being "second smartest" had jumpstarted his daily inferiority complex and Near hatred, as well as an early morning ranting within the next fifteen seconds if she didn't say anything before it started. Mello did absolutely despise the little albino midget, who he had started referring to as "the sheep" after Alpha accidently mentioned in front of him and Matt how much Near reminded her of a sheep.

"Mello," Alpha said hopelessly, "I know you've got an inferiority complex rivaled by no one–"

"I do not!"

"Yes you do, and interrupting is rude, but you've got to think about something. There's a _lot_ of kids here. A _lot_. You're as high up as you are because of hard work, and a lot of them would kill to be number two."

"But that _sheep–_"

"Gets all the attention, I know. But that's no reason to get pissed off at someone."

"You about pushed L out of his chair for scoring higher on you than a test!"

"No, _that_ was because _no one_ is supposed to know every fecking _element_ and – wait, th– that's not the point, anyways, quit making me go off subject!" Mello laughed, and Alpha regretted _ever_ mentioning to that little demon that she was easily distracted…. "I'm the last person you want to be acting like, trust me. Seeing as I'm forced to be inside my own head every day, I _would_ know."

"But it's not fair that _you_ get to disregard every rule here and you expect me to follow them. In fact, it's completely biased."

"I'm not saying you can't," she said. "Do _I_ look like I can stop you? I'm only suggesting that you don't. Meaning for your own sake, not for mine. I'm not the type of person who believes in the whole 'Do as I say and not as I do' load of crap. My belief is more of a 'Please don't do as I do, seeing as it'll get you into more trouble than you could have ever imagined possible' type of thing. Do you understand that?"

Mello seemed to consider this for a moment, a contemplative look manifesting in his eyes. Slowly, he nodded. Alpha gave a sigh of relief; she almost hadn't understood _herself_.

"You don't want me to get into trouble, even if you do," Mello said, "but I don't like Near and I'll probably get into trouble anyway, but you won't get mad because it was only a suggestion.

Alpha pursed her lips, trying to think of a way to end this predicament. Near might have been a sheepy little know-it-all… well, he was actually rather quiet, but he was still a sheepy little _something_, in her opinion… well, he might have been all that, but she didn't want her little minions beating on him just for that reason. If he _gave_ them a reason then maybe, but – no! That was wrong, too. They just shouldn't pick on people. That was all. But how to employ this? Matt just seemed to follow Mello around, he didn't really care much about anything to do with Near. Mello was the one who had to be talked into leaving Near alone… or manipulated.

"I'll give you a chocolate bar if you leave him alone for twenty-four hours."

Mello's eyes widened. Unfortunately, they narrowed slyly. He wasn't four anymore, and he had picked up quite a few tricks from her. One of them was haggling the prices or payouts her briberies.

"Three."

"Two."

"Two and a half."

"Two and a quarter."

"How's that going to work?"

"Then just two."

He widened his eyes pitifully. "Three?"

"_Fine_, three," she said resignedly, reaching down under her bed and feeling around for a box. She reached inside of it and pulled out three bars of chocolate, then handed them to the very smug-looking six-year-old. "But the pitiful thing isn't going to work forever, you know. That dies down with age."

"I'm going to be taking advantage of it while it still works, then."

"Then it appears your training is going quite well. Once you can get L to share his cake with you, there will be nothing more left for me to teach you."

_––––––––––_  
_Well, I just heard Matt's victory cheer, and I'm in the main sitting room and it's eight o' clock at night. I'm guessing he beat the first videogame to ever conquer him – Final Fantasy VI. I guilt-tripped him when he told me he'd used cheat codes and told him it was blasphemic and he only lost because he was feeling guilty. It worked!_

_I'm just awesome like that._

_And Mello, the little bugger that he is, just got three chocolate bars off of me in return for him not messing with Near for the whole day. If he doesn't keep his word, I know where his chocolate stash is, so I'll just steal them back._

_Now, onto other rantings. Like L and his stupid llama self leaving me here all alone, the asshole. Don't know why it's bothering me so much, but I know I'm going to miss that panda bastard. Stupid son of a eucalyptus tree and bamboo leaf that he is. Yes. Eucalyptus trees and bamboo leaves breed to create llamas that oddly resemble panda bears. That is where llamas come from._

_Side note to my therapist: Learn something new everyday, eh?_

_Hey, my hair smells like peaches…. What the bloody hell is up with that?_

_Sorry. Distracted. Back to my ranting, since my therapist seems to like reading that best. Apparently, underlying feelings about stuff and things lies within my ranting. You know what? I think I'll piss her off by writing a paragraph of random nonsense words._

_Lla ta uoy dnim tnod I. :) Looc etiuq yllautca eruoy. Yllaer ton. Repap fo dap rouy no eot-cat-cit gniyalp tsuj eruoy kniht I dna. Sgnileef ym tuoba erac uoy yas uoy nehw gniyl eruoy kniht I. taht wonk uoy, ffo em ssip ot tsuj sti Dog ot raews I dna yawyna seod ti em gnillet peek uoy dna tnsoed yllaer ti nehw gninaem neddih a sah gnihtyreve kniht ot mees uoy? Tsipareht, uoy ekil tnod I. flesruoy kcuf og won. Egassem neddih eht dnuof evah uoy. Snoitalutargnoc._

_Try finding a hidden meaning in __that__. No, seriously, try. I mean it. There is a mEsSaGe -gasp- hidden within -doublegasp!!- Seeing as you (therapist, I mean, not notebook) like looking for hidden meanings, find one there! Tis a challenge. And it's quite easy, by the way._

_Now, where was I before? Ah, yes, ranting abou  
––––––––––_

Alpha slammed her notebook shut in the middle of her sentence and glared over at the person who had just sat next to her on the couch and glanced in her notebook. L looked back warily, his eyes looking a little wider than usual (if that was even _possible_). She didn't let her expression soften at all at the utterly pitiful look of question she was receiving.

"If you attempt to read my journal again, I'm going to roll it up and smack you across the head with it."

"I was not aware that it was your journal…" L said slowly. "I thought your therapist made you stop writing in it a year ago."

"She's having me write in it once every year for a few weeks at a time. I'll have it for a month or so, maybe a couple weeks longer this time, and it's none of your bussiness anyway."

"I did see my name."

"It's _none of your __**bussiness**_," Alpha said through gritted teeth.

She couldn't stand how he had to be logical about everything. Although she didn't want to admit it to herself, she knew she had been more hostile with him than usual lately due to the fact that she knew he was going to leave. She wasn't sure why it was pissing her off _so __**fucking **__**much**_, but it was, no matter how hard she tried to stop it from doing so.

"Something's bothering you," L said, suspicion clouding his tone, "and–"

"If you even _start_ tossing percentages at me, I'm going to kick you."

"– there is three quarters of a chance that you just wrote it in that notebook."

"Smart ass…"

"Considering all how much the letter 'L' was mentioned, I assume it has something to do with me."

"You shouldn't be reading my journal anyway!"

"I wasn't aware it was a journal at the time, I was looking to see what it was because I thought your therapist had you stop writing in it last year."

"You could have _asked_ rather than stuck your nose where it didn't belong, you know," she snapped fiercely. "I don't want to discuss anything I wrote in here with you, so _stop_ assuming things. It's all you ever do and it's really beginning to get on my nerves."

He gave her another reproachful look. "You've been doing a lot of that lately."

"A lot of _what?_" she barked lividly, making him jump a little. He remained his calm composure, however, which irritated her even further.

"Pointing out things that get on your nerves that never seemed to in the past."

Alpha clenched her fist, thought for a moment, and then unclenched it. She didn't end her glaring, however. "Maybe I've just been being _nice_."

L looked at her for a moment longer, but then he turned his view to his knees. "Then I thought right in the first place."

"About what?"

"I figured you were only looking to be my friend because you pitied me. It's happened before, I've learned to recognize it."

"N… what are you talking ab… alright. You're not going to make me feel bad for you. I've never pitied you and I'm not about to start now. You might not've had any friends, but neither did I, and I wasn't pitying _myself_ for that, was I? You're the _number one smartest_ kid here, which is reason for you to gloat, not for me to feel sorry for you. I wanted to be friends with you because… I don't know, I just _did_, can you _understand_ that? Please?"

He nodded. "I figured as much."

"What the _hell_ are you–?"

"I only said that to see your reaction. I'm convinced the reason you are acting with such hostility is because you do look at me as a friend, and you're upset that your friend is going to be leaving soon, so you're trying to convince yourself that you don't care by lashing out at me."

She attempted to look either shocked or confused by his accusation. When she realized it was a lost cause, she just breathed out a sigh and shook her head. Alpha sat back against the couch and stared at the ceiling.

"I still think you're too smart for your own good…"

* * *

_Eh. Bit of a better mood now._

_Reviews always appreciated._

_Oh, and if you can't figure out the "hidden message," I'll let you know what it is in the next chapter, even though it's nothing overly significant._

_Note to me readers: **I'm mostly going to be working on this story and The King's Note until I get this one finished since I know where it's going to end. It'll be about 16 to 20 chapters, I think, and there will probably be a sequal, but maybe not. I'll let my readers decide.**_


	6. Red Irises

_**Disclaimer**__: I don't own Death Note._

_**Warningsss**__: Badwordsohnoes! My own interpretations of characters with little background info (more in later chapters, not so much in this one.) Cameo. Hmm. Psychoness. More letters -eep!-_

_**Quick summary of this chapter**__: "You could easily be suicidal if it was decided so by those with the power to decide. There aren't many, as those who do have your real name don't have the power to do so and those who have the power don't have your real name. Alpha Epsilon's real name is Cindy-Louise Marin McConnell, and -__insert name of cameo person here__- does have that power."_

_Yepyep. Cameos._

* * *

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_It was graduation today. It's been forever since I wrote in you and my therapist was getting pissed off so I started again. I only stopped because I there wasn't really anything to write about. So, today, May 18, was graduation day. Now Llama's going to be leaving in a week. Stupid son of a bitch. I'm already on the verge of tears, I think I might actually cry when he leaves. Even Mello's noticed I'm not being myself, and considering how little he is, that's just not normal. I've been trying to keep my temper in tact, but every time I get near L, I get this overpowering need to beat the crap out of him to the point where he's too injured to leave. I won't, though. I'll restrain myself from doing so, considering it would be mean, even if my intentions are just friendly._

_Well, as I said, today was graduation._

_I had to make a speech. Blech. It __SUCKED__. I did not like that one little bit. L also had to make a speech since he's the smartest and I'm smarter than everyone but him. It was funny, though. Matt and Mello were doing catcalls and whistling the entire time both of us were doing our speeches. They got into trouble with Roger. I think they're outside cleaning trash off of the lawns now._

_I told them to behave. They just didn't listen._

_T'was still funny as hell, though._

_Hearing yells of anger coming from the front door. Sounds like Mello's going through withdr  
_––––––––––

Alpha didn't have time to finish writing her sentence before both her pen and her chocolate were knocked away from her hands as she was football tackled to the floor. She saw a hand pick up her chocolate from the floor before she could reach it and heard the crumpling of paper before something weighed down on her back.

"That _hurt_!" she protested to the midget who was now sitting on her back with his legs crisscrossed. "And that was _mine_…"

"R'ger f'rbid me 'o bring a'y ou'side," Mello spoke through a mouth full of chocolate.

"Chew with your mouth closed…" Alpha grumbled, shutting her notebook that lay on the floor and clipping her pen to it. "If you hadn't been so loud durring the graduation thing, you wouldn't 'ave had to worry about that, you know."

"_You_ were laughing, that's completely hypocritical."

Alpha looked back at him, raising an eyebrow as she did so. "I couldn't even _pronounce_ the word 'hypocritical' when I was six, what sort of things are they teaching you in that bloody English class?"

"Words like 'hypocritical' and 'analytical' and 'antidisestablishmentari–"

"Oi, _I_ taught you that one, don't even go there. Now can you please sit somewhere else?" Mello shifted onto the floor, allowing Alpha to sit back up. "You're getting to heavy to do that, midget."

"Don't call me midget…" he grumbled, crossing his arms.

"Alright. Then henceforth, you will be known as Mello Yellow."

"But–"

"Where's your minion, by the way?"

"He called Roger a 'diaper-wearing old shite-head' – don't look at me like that, _he_ said it, I'm just quoting, and _he_ didn't even _say_ 'shite' for that matter! – and Roger's making him work for another hour."

Alpha laughed. "That man just can't take a joke. Be it a rather vulgar one, but still. I called him toupee-head the other day and now I'm not allowed to leave here to go into town for the next month, and _that's_ not even remotely creative. He's going to be calling everyone into his office soon and finding out what field of work we plan to get into…" she added with a sigh. "I'm going to tell him I'll just join another gang if he tosses me out, maybe he'll let me stay."

"You're _not_ leaving?"

"What, you think I'd leave you here without any supervision and let you kill Sheep-boy? Not gonna happen. I'd like to stick around for another few years."

"I thought for _sure_ you'd leave with everyone else…. How come you want to stay?"

"This place is just starting to grow on me."

She smiled a little. That was, of course, a lie. Alpha still despised the orphanage itself with a burning passion. However, she had decided over the course of the past year or so that she was there for a reason. She wasn't much of a believer in _faith_ or anything like that, and she only wore that rosary around her neck because it was her brother's, not because she was Christian or Catholic or whatever. Alas, fate had reared its ugly head in on her to head butt her into realizing it did, indeed, exist, and now she wasn't going to leave this place until she was confident she had done all she could in playing the role of Mello's mentor. It could have been nothing short of faith that she had witnessed the murder of his parents and then she was placed in the same orphanage as him. It was a chance to redeem herself of her own cowardice.

Mello still didn't know about what really happened to his parents. He still had the nightmares occasionally, but not as often as he had in the past. With this, Alpha could assume she was helping him at least a little, and telling him would probably hurt him even more. More than anything, she was afraid she might get blamed for the whole incident. Roger knew as much as the therapist had told him. He knew that Alpha had been in a couple street gangs, and he knew a member of one of them had killed Mello's parents, but he didn't know that _she_ had witnessed it. She wasn't going to let him find out _that_ and look at her as any more of a nuisance. It was better that the secret was kept between the few people who did know it.

––––––––––  
_Is lying wrong? Because I'm starting to get confused. __I__ was taught that lying was wrong. But it doesn't seem wrong in all cases. I also know the saying "little white lies never hurt anyone." But it's more than a little lie. I mean, I know what happened to the kid's parent's. Tis about midnight and he had that dream again. I'm getting really confused about this. I don't think he should know about it __yet__, but if he finds out later that I was lying to him, the kid might hate me. He's like my little brother. I don't have any family left, not __real__ family, so pretend family is about all I have. _

_I will tell him before I leave. I'm not going to leave for a __long__ time, but that's when I'll tell him. I think it'll be another four years yet, if not more. Unless Roger tortures me enough… then I'll leave before then. _

_Gah. I think I'll quit debating with myself and go to my room. Or not. I hear footsteps.  
_––––––––––

Alpha looked over at the source of the footsteps as she closed her notebook and set it on the floor next to her. She shook her head and looked back at the fireplace in front of her for a moment. If L even _started_ on her about why she was up this late, she was going to punch him, no questions asked. Decidedly, he didn't say anything as he was sitting down, but did something that merited him not only a punch, but a kick in the face.

"Drop the notebook."

"Why?"

That was slightly puzzling and even more troubling. Though the figure had resembled L, the voice… didn't? Not particularly. The voice was at least somewhat different, but… oh. It was that strange nine-year-old who was practically an L stalker. That explained it. Still, she didn't breathe a sigh of relief. Something about this kid gave her the creeps, and it was something other than the fact that he had made a point of attempting to look exactly like his idol. What was it? It could have possibly been the fact that he was the only person at the orphanage in _true_ need of some _major_ psychiatric help. He definitely needed it more than _she_ did, there was no doubt about that at all.

"It must be interesting if you make a point to stay up past midnight writing in it."

"That doesn't merit anyone the right to read it. Now _drop _it."

"This was given to you by your therapist," he observed, flipping through pages in the notebook while she tried to remember what the hell this creep's name was. "Alpha is number two in her age group. Mello is number two in his age group. I am number two in the entire orphanage."

"That's nice. Give me back my notebook."

The red eyes swiveled over to her for a moment. That was the main thing that scared her. Anyone or anything with red eyes was, to her knowledge, _evil_. His eyes went back to the notebook only a moment later, obviously deciding not to pay her request any sort of heed.

"So you are in therapy because your parents were killed by a street gang…" He flipped a page and scanned over the words. "… that you were in. I am in therapy because of what happened with the previous number two."

"Alright. Now give back my notebook."

"Impatient?"

"Decidedly so. Now give it back."

"Do you not want to know what happened to the previous number two?"

"I want my notebook back and for you to crawl back into whatever hole you came out of and leave me the fuck _alone_."

"Also aggressive and judging by this journal, rather profane. The previous number two couldn't take the pressure of taking over for L at any time. Do you think you know what his reaction to the pressure was?"

"He killed himself, I'm guessing. And I'm going to kill _you_ if you don't give back my notebook."

"According to this page you have killed before, but not for something as small as a notebook."

"I've beaten people within an inch of their life for a chocolate bar before. You want to take your chances with that notebook?"

He looked from the notebook at her. She glared back. Even though Alpha knew that glaring would have no effect on this kid, it gave her gratification. He held the notebook between his thumb and index finger in her direction now. She snatched it away from him.

"You are correct. The first who was second in line for the job L is going to have, committed suicide. After, it was believed I might do the same due to the pressure if I didn't get 'help' early on. I think they were more afraid that you would be homicidal or violent. I believe the circumstances are switched entirely based upon your notebook."

"I'm not suicidal at all," she said venomously. "And if you're homicidal at all, I would prefer that you leave me be."

"You could easily be suicidal if it was decided so by those with the power to decide. There aren't many, as those who do have your real name don't have the power to do so and those who have the power don't have your real name. Alpha Epsilon's real name is Cindy-Louise Marin McConnell, and B does have that power."

Well, at least she had a name now… or, alias, at least. That didn't stop her from being scared out of her wits. There was no logical reasoning as to how he could have known her name. She did know that she had to learn how to hide her emotions better. She had felt her own eyes widen out of the glare at the mention of her real name, a name she hadn't gone by since her parents were alive. There was always the possibility that this kid had gotten into files that he shouldn't have gotten into and discovered it. That was a hopeful thought. Otherwise, it meant he could either read minds or be able to tell people's names. And what did he mean by he had the power to decide…. What the _hell_?"

"What are you talking about?"

"B will be number one at the orphanage when L leaves. Alpha will be number two. I will be next in line to take over for L, and you will not. Do not attempt to change that."

"You didn't answer my question." She rolled her eyes, realizing he wasn't going to. "So you're saying that the reason the previous number one is no longer alive?"

"Keep it a secret if you are smart."

"Considering I don't even know what I'm keeping a secret, that should be easy enough."

As though anticipating her actions, he stood at the same exact time she did. Without a word to the psychosis patient, Alpha walked around him. She stopped at the foot of the stairs and listened for a moment, surprised at what she heard.

"No, she won't be killed yet if at all, as she poses no threat, Akino. Now be quiet."

Akino…? Now even more disturbed than before, Alpha headed quickly up the stairs and into her room, where the door was already open. As she looked in, she rolled her eyes heavenward. She just wasn't going to get a break tonight! Trying hard not to grumble anything sardonic under her breath, she sat down on her bed and looked over at the chocolate thief sitting on her bed.

"You're up late," she said. "And is that my chocolate?"

"I can't sleep, Matt snores too loud!"

"Kick him and tell him he's not allowed to sleep until you go to sleep, then."

"I can't, he's on the top bunk."

"Throwing stuff is just as effective. And _is_ that my chocolate?"

"Y… maybe. Where were you? I came in here at five minutes to midnight."

"And started eating my chocolate, obviously. I was downstairs."

Mello tilted his head to the side. "I started to go down there, but I heard that strange kid that looks like L talking to himself."

"Feel fortunate you had enough sense to come back up here. He wasn't talking to _himself_. Well, I think he was when I was leaving, seeing as I don't know who the bloody hell Akino is, but that's his bussiness and I'm not going to go near him again to ask."

"I think it's his imaginary friend."

"Probably. Now. Seeing as it's after midnight, you should probably be headed off to _bed_?"

"Alright…. But I'm sending Matt to you if he gets pissed about the videogame case I'm going to throw at him."

"Language."

"Should I learn to say it in Spanish?"

"Smart ass…"

"Do you really wonder why I swear?"

"Oh, go to bed," she said, elbowing his arm. "You're too young to be staying up all night. Or swearing. I already told you that once, wait until you're at least ten."

"Oh, fine…" he said, getting up with his chocolate. "Bye."

"Night, Mello Yellow."

"Stop _calling_ me that."

"But it's _cool_," she said, "since you've got a song and a soft drink named after you now!"

"Bite me!" he said on the way out the door.

"Respect your elders!" she replied cheerfully as the door slammed shut behind the midget.

Alpha laughed, as she lay back and closed her eyes. The darkness began to lull her fully awake mind closer to sleep as colors swirled behind her eyelids, forming into a vision of darkness with no color but the whites of a pair of eyes with red irises. Her eyes snapped open. She grabbed her notebook from next to her and opened it… then shut it. If she wrote down a word he said, then her therapist would report back to Roger with it, and that kid seemed to have a strange way of finding things out that he wasn't supposed to know. She hadn't told anyone her real name at the orphanage, except for Watari when she got there, even though he probably already knew it. Roger, though – she had told him that her name was Mary Poppins, mostly just because she didn't like him by first instinct and wanted to start annoying _him_ immediately.

Even mentioning that weirdo in her notebook would be too risky. It had become more or less an instinct for her to pick up her notebook and write about anything interesting in it. This was interesting in its own way, in the sense that it did hold her attention, even though it didn't hold her attention in a particularly pleasant way. It disturbed her, but she couldn't stop thinking about it. She wasn't sure if it was the little speech he had made or his imaginary friend Akino that he was telling to shut up as she left the room, but there was something…. People like that kid just didn't cross her as normal, or even as weird-in-a-good-way. No… that kid was going to grow up to be a serial killer. There was no doubt of it in her mind.

Alpha set her notebook on her floor and gave it a small push to let it go under her bed. Despite the fact that she had grown to view that psychodiary of hers as a friend itself, some things were just better left unsaid, just as some were better left unwritten. Her therapist would read it, and she couldn't have anyone knowing anything about her conversation with that little freak. Mello knew, but he knew enough about when to keep his mouth shut that it wouldn't hurt anything for him to know. No one else could know, as anyone else could snitch on her in a heartbeat. She wouldn't tell anyone anything until she knew a little more of what was going on herself. Finding out anything would be hard, but she had to have confirmation that he was only a mental case who had broken into file folders and found out things he shouldn't know. She needed confirmation that he didn't _really_ have the "power" to make others die in any manner, whether it was suicide or not.

No one else could know what she knew.

* * *

_Sorry it took me so long to update._

_But thanks for the five comments on the last chapter, I've been getting two and three per chapter, so that was nice to see :)_


	7. Strawberry Jam and Apples

_Been a while, I know, but I'm back again.  
You may be happy now. Unless you don't want me to be back. Then you can be mad._

_**Disclaimer**__: I do not own any Death Note characters at all.  
__**Warnings**__: Angst. Apples. Jam. Profanity. A. B. L. More alphabet letters. Mostly the same stuff as always.  
__**Short Summary**__: "Are you suggesting he suffers Alphaphobia, so he torments people with names associated with the letter A in a outlandish attempt to overcome his fear of said letter? That seems utterly ridiculous, you know."_

* * *

––––––––––_  
I admit, not very proudly, that I'm afraid._

_I can't tell you why I'm afraid or what it is that I'm afraid of, because that would only increase my fear._

_I think I'll leave it at that for now.  
_––––––––––

Alpha shut her notebook, set it next to her, and leaned back against the wall next to her bed wall with her arms wrapped around her knees. She had been confused lately. For the past two days, every time a thought expressing even the most remote signs of angst crossed her mind, she would brush it away as quickly as possible, fearing that it was red eye's doing. Maybe he had red eyes because he truly _was_ evil. Alpha was beginning to think he was a Satan incarnate or at least demonically possessed somehow. She didn't believe in those sorts of things, but that kid made it seem probable.

And who the _hell_ was Akino?

It had become a habit of hers to stop by B's door and listen to his conversations with "himself." Everyone said he talked to himself, but unless he referred to himself with a different name, it wasn't "himself" he was talking to. It could have surely been an imaginary friend, judging by how psycho that little shit was, but that somehow didn't seem a propper assumption to make. Her immediate thoughts (which she brushed aside as childish and ignorant) were that he was talking to the demon that was embodying him. But, yes, that seemed stupid as well.

The only solution seemed to be that she would have to speak to him again. She was good at manipulating others, so she _might_ have been able to get more information from him if she tried hard enough. It was a long shot, but nothing else seemed even remotely possible. The thought of speaking with him again scared her to her wit's end, but she had to ask how he intended to force anyone to commit suicide, or how he had done so in the first place if it were true… or how he knew her name. That thought caused her to shudder in fear.

She had been afraid for her life ever since her conversation with the boy because of the simple fact that he knew her name. With Watari and Roger around, Alpha didn't even want to think about attempting to break into the orphanage's private files and records regarding the children there. As it was Watari mainly in charge of the files and not Roger, and Watari seemed significantly smarter than Roger, there was do doubt in her mind that she would have been discovered. B was smart, the second smartest in the entire orphanage, which meant that he probably also had the common sense not to break into the orphanage's files. That meant he had discovered her name in some other manner.

That was what scared her the most. It seemed unreal – surreal, if nothing else. Supernatural, even. The idea that he could see her name by looking at her was utterly incomprehensible to her, but at the same time, it was actually starting to seem possible. That could have either meant that she was going insane or that he _was_ demonically possessed. That seemed like _all_ it could have meant. But that still sounded so ridiculous…. She didn't even have to say it aloud. It sounded nonsensical just in her head.

As Alpha chewed her thumbnail, desperately trying to think of an answer, she looked down at herself. She immediately stopped chewing her thumbnail. She noticed how her hand was positioned on top of one of her bent knees, which were close enough for her to comfortably rest her chin upon. She was chewing on her fingernail. She had woken up hours ago and still hadn't brushed her hair, and she was sure her eyes were going to reflect the fact that she had been having very few hours of sleep for the past couple nights. The thought hit her quite suddenly. She groaned in agony, sliding her hand off of her knee, and her fist landed on the bed with a light _thump!_ as she lay her forehead upon her knees instead.

She – _Alpha_ – was thinking like L. It was wrong. It was horribly, horribly wrong. _She_ wasn't logical. _She_ was completely illogical to the point that she could have made a very good living off of being a lawyer just by making the jury give up with her persistence at arguing the dumbest of ideas. No, she _couldn't_ be thinking like him! She was definitely acting like him. She was only leaving her room for about one meal a day, and _only_ talking to L and Mello when she did decide to sit on the sofa in the main room. She hadn't been half as satirical as she normally was. All that was left was for her to develop an unnatural and obviously unhealthy addiction to cakes of all kinds.

What truly surprise Alpha was that L hadn't been questioning her half to death about why she had been acting so out of character, seeing as he seemed to question everything else in the world. There was, of course, the possibility that he was dead scared of getting his nose broken if he tried to interrogate her… which probably would have happened a few days ago. Now, though, she wasn't sure she could muster up enough motivation to even _think_ about breaking any noses. That was even more unnatural. She couldn't help but wonder how L could stand living in such a state of mind. Perhaps he had a different state of mind. There was always the slightest chance.

"Aren't you _ever_ going to leave your room again?"

Alpha jumped at the sudden sound of the voice as she looked up at her open doorway to see Mello and Matt peering in… well, in all fairness, Matt was more focused on his Game Boy, but he had stopped and glanced up for a moment. Alpha was glad she had allowed one of her knees to become unbent and she was more or less slouching against the wall rather than sitting straight up. She probably didn't look so (freakishly) much like L now.

"Eventually."

"You might want to hurry up. L said he wanted to talk to you about something and I think it has to do with you turning into a hermit."

She waved a dismissive hand. "I'll talk to him later."

Mello shrugged, and he and Matt continued down the hallway. She looked down at the watch around her wrist. It was almost one o' clock in the afternoon. That meant she had actually awoken a little more than a few hours ago and missed both breakfast and lunch without being completely aware of it at the time. She was loosing track of time completely, only adding to her thoughts that she was going insane. Now was as good a time as any to talk to L, since almost everyone would be outside or in their rooms.

She stood up and stretched her arms towards the ceiling. It was going to be a slow amble downstairs, considering that she hadn't even moved all day. She grabbed her notebook from her bed and walked to the door of her room. She heard garbled conversation coming from a room a few doors down from her own. She exited her room and stopped at that door, listening to B.

"Alpha is the Greek letter for A. Do you remember A?" A pause. "Yes, he was that one. Now B is the first successor. Yes, letter as well, but why do you seem to think such a thing to be so important? I suppose that is true, but– I will get you an apple in a minute, Akino. Leave me be for now. I'm thinking."

Shuddering at the thought of a demonic apple eater, Alpha continued quietly past the door and down the stairs, into the main room. She joined L on the sofa when she got there and looked at him boredly.

"What is it that I have been summoned here for? More questionings about random things that will only drive me bonkers?"

"Yes, for the most part, although it isn't my intention to annoy you."

"Oh, but of _course_ not…"

"Judging by your sudden changes in behavior, I'm going to have to assume that you have spoken with B."

"Oh. No. Definitely not. No. Wouldn't go within ten feet of that kid, he scares the shit out of me."

"You realize I can tell when you're lying, don't you?"

Alpha shrugged nonchalantly, looking up at the ceiling. She could remember seeing her brother be interrogated about random things by their parents, and she had learned by observation that acting careless and bored was the best way to get the interrogators off your back. They would give up eventually and decide that it just wasn't worth the waste of time. It was doubtful this method would work on someone like L, but, hey – it was definitely worth a shot, right?

"The last person he went after was called A."

"Are you suggesting he suffers Alphaphobia, so he torments people with names associated with the letter A in a outlandish attempt to overcome his fear of said letter? That seems utterly ridiculous, you know."

"So then you do admit to speaking with him?"

"Nope."

"But then again, I somehow doubt you would tell anyone if you had. A refused to, after all. He finally said something about it to Watari a few weeks later, and then he killed himself the next day. A and B basically got along –"

"Which is good, considering they're basically alphabet neighbors."

"Could you listen for a moment?"

"I could consider it."

"Good. As I said, they did basically get along, but B has always acted… er… _strangely_."

"Like talking to people who aren't there?"

"Among other things. A began getting paranoid of B after whatever it was that happened to cause him to be paranoid happened, and acting quite a bit like you have been acting lately, as well as refused to go near B."

"And the alphabet was never the same again."

"Have you spoken with B?"

She rolled her eyes. "If I tell you, then are you going to mention anything to Roger or Watari? Because if you do, then I'm going to kick you to Mars so you can be with your nonhuman friends."

"O… kay. I wasn't going to, no."

"Well, first off, I'll have you know, the person he talks to who isn't there likes apples." L slowly raised an eyebrow. "I heard him talking to it just now. He said he'd get it an apple in a minute. So keep an eye on the stairs. If you see yourself only about a foot shorter and with red eyes coming down them, then alert me. I'm not going to tell you everything, just that yes, he did talk to me, and his imaginary person is called Akino. He claims he has some sort of power to kill others or make them kill themselves and a load of nonsense, and I'm _almost_ inclined to believe him on account of how scary he is."

"A… apples?" L shook his head. "Just keeps getting more abnormal…. The only way he has to power to make anyone die is by driving them to do it themselves. Just be careful around him."

"Tell me something."

"Hmm?"

"Have _you_ ever met someone with red eyes who _wasn't_ evil?"

"I can't say I had ever met anyone with red eyes before B, personally."

"Did… he always have red eyes?"

"Yes. Since he arrived here, at the least."

"And what about Akino?" At this, she received a somewhat confused look. "I mean, has he always talked to him… her… it?"

"It would appear that way. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that myself."

Alpha sighed. "I'm not sure I want to make anything of it. I think it has something to do with his eyes. People just don't naturally develop eyes of that color." She glanced up the stairs and abruptly changed the course of the conversation. "I mean, yellow, really? Has to be color contacts."

L looked at her offhandedly for a moment, but she signaled him by glancing in the direction of the stairs. He repeated the motion, and upon spotting his doppelganger coming down the stairs, tried to continue the conversation on a believable note that actually made sense. Alpha _had_ kind of come up with that off the top of her head, after all. She just didn't want that kid to get suspicious. She didn't want to kill herself. The idea scared her.

She let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding in as the tousled-haired boy left the room, then rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "I think I know how I'm going to die. Lack of oxygen."

"Breathing could help."

"He thinks I'm going to get in the way of something," she said, shaking her head and ignoring L's comment the best that she could. "I'm not sure what, but it's definitely what he thinks. It's like he wants to be number two – in the charts this week, I can't _believe_ that," she carried on in a different tone as she saw B leave the kitchens with an apple and a jar of strawberry jam (no bread, she noticed…), "I mean, in all honestly, their single should have been number one this week, despite the fact that their vocalist is really an ass in person."

She glanced up. He was far enough up the stairs now that they could carry on their conversation.

"That was random," she said, although she didn't particularly need to.

"Short attention spans come in handy in some situations, I suppose."

––––––––––  
_Ohhohoho, that kid is a creep. I'm sorry. I told L as much as I could without him getting too suspicious about it and he was still suspicious and rather worried for my safety._

_The last one that this kid messed with killed himself. That's a really refreshing thought to live with. The fact that this kid might cause me to up and kill myself. Well, skidleydoo!  
_––––––––––

Grumbling under her breath, Alpha lay down on her bed. It was definitely going to be a long night of worrying and nightmares. She hated having those types of nights, but she needed sleep. As it turned out, hiding from psycho nine-year-olds all day was more tiresome than she had first assumed it would be. No matter. While it may have only been about eight o' clock at night, she could still sleep. She had been smart enough to lock her door this time, even. She didn't normally mind Mello visiting her in the middle of the night looking for either chocolate or help interpreting that reoccurring dream of his, but tonight, she did mind. _No one_ was getting into her room. Not one single person. She _just_ wanted some damn _sleep_, that was all. It shouldn't have been too much to ask for.

She pulled the covers on her bed up over her, attempting to find some sort of comfortable position. She finally found one and relaxed, closing her eyes slowly. She rolled them, even with her eyelids down, as a vision of wide, staring red eyes filled her mind. Sleeping was going to be made nearly impossible with that vision imprinted into her mind for the rest of time.

Alpha left her eyes open for a few minutes, wondering what to do. Resignedly, she closed her eyes again in another attempt to sleep. She was tired, but this just kept happening every night. She was just going to have to give in and keep her eyes shut to hope for sleep, regardless of what kinds of dreams it brought. They were only nightmares. That was all. Never reality. It wouldn't affect her when she woke up. To let something so stupid make her afraid would be simply inane, as well as insane.

Of course, her mind disagreed with her when she woke up at twelve o' clock that night after a nightmare she didn't remember. She had fallen on the floor with a yelp of fear when she awoke. She lay there for a few moments, feeling absolutely foolish. However, she couldn't help it. She walked over to her computer desk and turned her lamp on before getting back in bed and laying back down on top of the covers with her arms crossed. She hadn't slept with a night light since she was three and afraid that the monster in her closet was going to get her.

Unfortunately, she remembered describing the monster to her parents as having red eyes. _Red_. Dammit. Why did she have to remember something like that _now?_ That was stupid! She _wasn't_ a little kid anymore…. Nightmares weren't supposed to actually keep scaring her when she woke up, but it always seemed that the ones that she never remembered were the worst. She wasn't sure if she was grateful for this or not, as it only made her all the more curious as to what in the world could be worse than the ones she _did_ remember.

She sat straight up at the sound of a knock on her door. She was almost afraid to answer.

_Foolish child_, she heard a voice in her mind chide her. She decided to ignore it.

"Yeh?" she said in response to the knock.

"Open!" was all that came from the other side, in a hushed voice.

She sighed in – what, relief? She was hardly relieved that Mello was at her door sounding scared out of his wits. She had hoped to avoid exactly this sort of thing. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen tonight. So, actually quite glad for the company although she would never admit it for fear of tarnishing her own reputation, Alpha stood up and walked to the door. She unlocked it and opened it. The midget darted around her quickly. She shut the door and locked it behind her, and turned to see him huddled against the wall on her bed. She walked back there and also sat down.

"Nightmare."

He nodded fervently. This wasn't what he was usually like after his most frequent nightmare, and usually, other nightmares were things he found utterly hilarious the next day, for whatever reason. Probably for the same reason that she had laughed all the way through every zombie movie she had ever watched, but whatever. That didn't matter. Mello was scared out of his wits for some reason, and she had to figure out _why_. Oh joy.

"What about?"

"L's successor. B. That kid. I woke up and he was standing over my bed with a knife. And a jar of jam that looked more like blood. Then it was one of those dreams where I woke up again and I was actually awake but it scare the sh–"

"Language"

"– it out of me!" he finished anyway. "I'm not going back in my room, it's haunted!"

"Mello, think reasonably, here," she said. "How could your room be haunted by someone who is _alive_?"

"Number one, out of body experience. Study it. It's _real_. Number two, who _ever_ said that he _wasn't_ dead? _I_ think he's a vampire, and strawberry jam reminds him of blood. And it _isn't_ funny! The earliest accounts of vampirism in the New England colonies in the States include details of the victims being asleep at the time and dreaming it, while the vampire actually _is_ there and sucking out their soul! They opened a coffin weeks after this woman had died and she hadn't even _started_ decomposing. They had to burn her heart to make it stop! I think someone should do that to B."

"You're rambling, Mello."

"Am not."

"Now you're attempting to start an argument. You should consider a career as a lawyer. What made you want to study vampires in the first place?"

"B did. I looked at him one day and thought 'vampire.' So I looked things up on the computer and concluded he is one, but he's the kind that consumes both blood and souls, except he has substituted blood for strawberry jam. Stop _laughing_…"

"Is there anything in particular that could have triggered this dream?"

"B! Do I need to recite the alphabet?"

"No. I mean, did he say anything at all to you?"

"No," Mello said, "but you and L were discussing him earlier, that could have been it. Is he really after you?"

_Oh shit. How'd he hear us? He must not have been in his room… probably went outside and came back in and heard us talking about it and hid out until we both left…. Crap._

"Mello, you _know_ how paranoid I am. It's highly doubtful he is, he just disturbs me slightly."

"But with what happened to A–"

"A was under too much pressure and couldn't take it anymore, and B was only adding onto it. That's all there was to that."

"He's still a damn vampire!"

"If you keep swearing, I'm going to revoke your chocolate privileges."

His eyes widened in horror. "Sorry."

"Now. You have to admit, the kid is smart. A little on the weird side, but smart. He's not going to kill anyone, especially not right under Watari's nose."

"Watari's leaving with L."

"I know, but that doesn't mean anything. I'm going to find out if I can take over Roger's position here while Roger fills in for Watari. If he's under my watch, I'll make sure he doesn't do anything. Besides, no one ever said he was psycho."

Mello shrugged, but seemed mostly in agreement. "He is smart and all. He's got to be if he's in line as L's successor before _you_ are. And he might not be psychotic, but he's still creepy…."

––––––––––  
_Great. Mello overheard me talking to L and now __he's__ scared of that psycho-kid._

_Could this week possibly get any worse?_

_Oh, right, it could. Watari and L are leaving at the end of it._

_Shit!_  
––––––––––

Alpha threw her journal across her room in annoyance, as though it were the cause of all of the problems she was having. She wished she knew why she was afraid. There was no point. She was sixteen and he was nine. She could beat the crap out of him if she wanted to. There was no use denying it at all.

But, still, she was afraid. And so was Mello. And it was her fault. It was a wonderful, wonderful week.

* * *

_Whellll after reading __Death Note: Another Note LABB Murder Cases__, I officially declare L, Matsuda, Mello and B to be tied as my most favoritist characters in any series ever of all time. All tying for the number 1 spot. I'm aware Matsuda doesn't fit in with the theme, but I don't care because he's just that awesome._

_Anyways. I'm up to 20 reviews and I am grateful as always._

_There's going to be one more chapter in the age 16 years, then the next one will be a year later at 17, obviously._


	8. Marcus Antonius, the Psychodiary

To those who've been reading my new updates to **The King's Note**, I told ya so.

What did I tell you? That I was also working on updating **Mellow Out**, of course! Now, I think I'm going to do one or two more official chapters after this (I'm sorry!), and then two different Epilogues after the final chapter. That would make for a fairly short story, but mark my words, there shall be a sequal. After reading the final epilogue in this one, which I've already written, you will know that there's going to be a sequal. There just plain has to be, I'd be cruel not to have offered you one. Which is why I'm also working on the first few chapters for it.

**Anywho, warnings:**  
Bordering on insanity, rhetorical questions, all the fucking swearing that there usually is, Marcus Antonius the Psychodiary, and regretful stuff.

**Disclaimo:**You already know it by now. I don't own shiznit, except original concepts in this here story. Yeppers.

**Quick-sum: **"_Yeah, so I'm not going to have a stress reliever anymore. I don't have a spare notebook and it just wouldn't be the same if I did, buddy. I don't want to burst into a chorus of "You Are My Sunshine," but it almost seems appropriate :( First I lose one of my only non papery friends without so much as saying goodbye and now I'm loosing my only papery friend, too!_"

* * *

_L's gone. Left two days ago. Yeah. And you know what? I didn't say goodbye._

_I've been locked in my room for three days, obsessing over whether or not I'm going to die, and I only go downstairs at night to grab something to eat, usually toast or something. Always pass that creep along the way. I think this is probably going to be the last entry I write, before I turn it in to my therapist today. But that's not important, whether I do or I don't. I think I know what he's up to. When I say he, I know who I mean, and I'm not explaining it so my therapist can read it. No one else can know._

_I can't stay in here for much longer or they'll unlock my door and force me to come out, so I'll probably leave again soon._

_I'm starting to feel guilty, anyway. I think Mello thinks I might be dead, either that or close to it.  
––_

Alpha shut her notebook and set it next to her on her computer desk, then continued strumming her fingers as she looked at the screen of the computer in her room. Breaking into the computer database of the Wammy's was a lot easier than she had expected. She had read through a few files just to learn a little more about the people in question, and she managed to keep away from L, Mello's, and Matt's files, though the curiosity had been terrible. It didn't say much except their names and a few other random facts, there wasn't much else there, nothing about their parents. So she knew that A's real name had been Allen Newell and B's real name – strange as it was – was Beyond Birthday. Those were the only two files she wanted to see. B's file and A's file. Okay, she wanted to see the other threes' files, too, but that would have been a violation of privacy.

B's file contained the information that he did have a therapist and that he had told her a few strange things, a few being that he could see when people were going to die _and_ he could see their names. That was weird. Maybe that explained the odd coloration of his eyes? She didn't think that B had broken into the database to look into her file. It was just too strange that he knew her real name, too strange. She couldn't understand how….

She shook herself mentally, letting the thoughts leave her head as she heard a knocking on her door. Sure it was Mello again, Alpha stood up with much effort – her lack of sleep was affecting her sense of balance quite a bit – and slowly walked to the door, grabbing her notebook to take with her. She hadn't been letting it out of arm's reach lately. She had to squint a little when she opened the door, almost in disbelief at the person on the other side, then she sighed. She had to have known it would happen if she stayed in her room for too long, after all.

"Hello, Roger."

"Alpha." Right to business, as always. "Is there any reason in particular that you would like to share, as to why you have been staying in your room for the past three days? You were allowed to stay here under the agreement that you would be _working_ for the orphanage."

"Well–"

"No excuses, you have work that needs to be done. Follow me."

Alpha shook her head and rolled her eyes heavenward as she followed the old man. "_You_ were the one who asked why, sir, I was only answering your question."

"I'm sure you are aware of what a rhetorical question is."

"I am, but it didn't sound rhetorical, you asked me a question and I planned to answer it."

"Then do so now."

"That was only a rhetorical complaint," she mocked. "Whose office am I getting?"

"It would be much easier for you to work from Watari's office, as it would require less transferring of – may I ask what is so funny?" he said, glaring at Alpha as she laughed. It didn't stop her.

"My office is bigger than yours."

Alpha was left in the office by an extremely irate Roger after having been given her instructions in the form of, more or less, a to-do list. She was in charge of looking through IQ result tests in nearby orphanages and reporting to Roger who was worth looking into. As it was… there were apparently a lot of dumb orphans. The job was very boring and even more tedious. Not to mention, it was extremely irritating. After a while, she was reduced to spinning in circles in the swivel chair behind the desk with nothing better to do. Was she even going to be paid for this? If not, she was going to sue Roger for slave driving.

After about fifteen minutes of spinning, she decided to get back to work. She was both tired and dizzy now, a basically lethal combination when added to working, but even if she was "working" there, she had a feeling Roger would still be treating her like a child, and she didn't much feel like getting whacked in the head with a cane. So work was the only option, and there was _way_ too much of it.

She took down the name of a girl named Lynn Flannery, apparently the only smart orphan that the Wammy's House had yet to corrupt, who was quite into art. They didn't have many artists, and it didn't seem a half bad idea. Alpha almost felt bad for the poor girl, but if Roger went back and found out that she hadn't done as instructed, she might be forced to leave the orphanage. With Watari gone, she was sure that Roger was just itching for a reason to kick her out. He had never liked her, not from her first day there, and she knew that he never _would_ like her. She wanted to stay there for a while to pay the debt that she felt she owed to Mello's parents, and to attempt to keep him from killing Near, which he probably would do if not prevented. He was really out to get that poor sheep boy.

There was no other way. She would have to oblige to all orders if she wanted to stay.

* * *

_I swear to God, that creepy kid was hiding in my office today. I felt like I was being watched the entire time I was there. Oh __hell__ no. I don't like it when people make me paranoid. It makes me… er… paranoid. My vocabulary is slowly declining now. That doesn't make me very happy either._

_I'm starting to feel guilty about not saying goodbye to L. He said he's going to be coming back between cases and everything, but what I did wasn't very friendly-like. Yes, I experience feelings of guilt, dammit! I don't know why you thought I didn't. I already said I feel guilty about the Mello-street-gang-parent-death thing, didn't I?! Huh?!!_

_Oh, right, you're a notebook. That was just the voice I've been hearing in my head arguing with me. Sorry, didn't mean to spaz on you. No I didn't, you stupid voice, now go AWAY!_

_I've got to see my therapist in a few minutes, I'm just writing until she gets here, I guess. There's really nothing better to do, sitting here on this couch. Wonder what she'll make of the voices. She'll be thinking, this is udder chaos! And I'll be thinking moo-ha-ha-ha! Wait, no, I just gave myself away. Fuck._

_Ah, here she is. I will talk to you later._

_You know, I've had you two years and have yet to name you. I dub thee Marcus Antonius! But I'm going to call you Ant for short, kk? Cool. That's all good._

_I do beseech thee, Ant, to await my return with the patience of a boulder lying at the bed of a river – shall ye comply? Woot! Random Shakespeare stuffs. Anywho, adios, my therapist is looking at me funny.  
––_

Alpha shut her notebook and looked up at Karen. Alpha set her notebook on the table between them, crossing her legs and arms.

"I've read your entries, as you know," Karen said.

"Really? I thought you just thought the paper was pretty-looking."

"And," Karen continued, apparently choosing to ignore Alpha's sarcasm, "I've decided that you will have it for one more day. And that's all."

"Then I get it back a year from now."

"No," Karen said, "not unless it seems you need it back."

Alpha felt her jaw drop unintentionally, and she shut her mouth quickly. "But I just named him!"

"You –? Never mind…. You can continue to keep a journal of your own, but I won't be reviewing this one for any longer, and I will need it back to keep in my file when I see you tomorrow."

Alpha crossed her arms and glared indignantly at Karen, her hair falling in front of her eyes as she sat back against the couch. She pursed her lips. "Ant is _my_ notebook. Leave him alone."

"Alpha, you're not making any sense…" said Karen with a sigh, shaking her head. "I'll see how you do without the journal for the next few months. If I believe you need it back, then you will get it back. If I don't believe you do, then there's no need for it."

Alpha decided to glare at her therapist for the rest of the session. She didn't entirely understand Karen's reasoning. Alpha was sure the journal was helping her and she would just be left confused and completely at lack of anything to do if it was taken away from her. For having a PhD in psychology, she was awfully stupid and lacked the common logic that a normal person would use to survive every day events. She was going to consider running away more and more if she didn't get that notebook back.

* * *

_Well, Ant, it seems the time has come for us to part ways. Do not cry, for I __will__ be figuring out a way to get you back. I'll regress back to my behavior from when I first arrived here if I have to. This is just injustice._

_Yeah. That Karen bitch, my therapist, is under this strange and __STUPID__ impression that I don't need you anymore. I know, right?? STUPID!!!!! Ugh. I could kill that woman. With a pen. The pen is mightier than the sword, so they say? She'll figure that out when mine goes through her bloody EYE!!!!!_

_Yeah, so I'm not going to have a stress reliever anymore. I don't have a spare notebook and it just wouldn't be the same if I did, buddy. I don't want to burst into a chorus of "You Are My Sunshine," but it almost seems appropriate :( First I lose one of my only non papery friends without so much as saying goodbye and now I'm loosing my only papery friend, too! I despise Karen. And Roger. And The Wammy's House. All of it, I hate it. I'd like to leave right now. If it weren't for Mello, I would. I won't for a while because of my little bro, but I will within the next four years at least. Probably when he's ten. He'll almost be a teenager at that point, so I guess he'll probably be all right… right?_

_I just know I can't stand staying here for much longer. I know L tried to say goodbye and I feel guilty as hell for not…. I'm scared of you-know-who-I'm-talking-about. I'm scared he could make me kill myself at any given moment or something. I'm afraid of what staying here might do to my state of mind. I just want out._

_I hope to talk to you again soon, Ant._

––

Alpha dropped her notebook on the floor in her room with her pen inside of it and fell backwards on her bed. She rolled onto her side to face the wall, which she took to glaring at, then fantasizing that it was her therapist so she could stab her in the eye.

It was about seven o' clock in the evening, according to her watch. She didn't want to fall asleep, she just wanted to disappear somewhere and take her notebook with her. Alpha was almost positive that being in a street gang had been better for her sanity than _this_ madness – particularly better for it than the prescence standing in her doorway and looking at her with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity. She picked her head up to see Mello there before letting it hit the pillow again, then tucking her hands behind her head.

"'Ello," she said vaguely.

"Your door's open," Mello pointed out, stepping over the threshold almost cautiously.

"Yeah, obviously," she said with a laugh, "otherwise you'd have just walked into a closed door."

Mello laughed at this, apparently taking it as a hint that Alpha was no longer in the mood she had been in for the past three days that had caused her to lock herself in her room. He walked behind her computer desk first, then pushed the computer chair over next to her bed, since Alpha was basically sprawled over her entire bed. He first reached under her bed and pulled out a chocolate bar, then climbed into the swivel chair and looked at her.

"How come you locked your door for three days?" he asked, more suspiciously than curiously (though it appeared he was trying to disguise his voice with only curiosity.

Alpha shrugged – she couldn't tell Mello the truth, the poor kid was only six years old. It might scare him. "I was feeling a bit under the weather," she said. "I've started feeling a bit better, I spent most of the day working for Roger. Had to pick out new kids to be brought here."

Mello snorted, and then took a bite of chocolate. "I pity them," he said. "That's going to be your only job?"

"Oh, no, I also get to do their initial interviews when they show up like Roger used to. Roger helps them pick out their fake names now like Watari did. I'm not much looking forward to it, but I'll deal with it."

"I know I'm leaving the second _I_ graduate, even if I'm not named L's successor," Mello said. "That's probably going to go to _Near_ or that B kid."

"Hey!"

"Or you," he added quickly. "Forgot. Sorry. But, anyway," he continued, "you're mad for wanting to stay here, particularly with Watari gone. Unless this means that you can talk him out of getting me and Matt into trouble, then I sincerely thank you."

"Well, you called me mad," said Alpha in a falsely hurt voice. "I don't believe that merits you any help from me."

"… Please?" he asked pitifully.

She rolled her eyes. "That _will_ stop working for you one day, you know."

Mello nodded. "I have to take advantage of it while I still can. You're the one who told me I should."

"I didn't mean for you to use it on _me_…"

Alpha finally managed to talk him into going back to his room at eight by assuring him that she hadn't hidden in her room to avoid B (which turned out to be the main question he had wanted to ask in the first place), though there was much protest on Mello's part until she told him to take a few chocolate bars and leave quietly. She had accidently made him stay five minutes longer to tell her off when she called him "Mellonhead," but he did finally leave, allowing her a bit of time to herself, to think if nothing else.

The only thing she could think to do would be to talk to B. It might endanger her life more, but at least no one else, particularly not Mello, would have to feel endangered by B's psychotic tendencies. At least, they wouldn't have to feel _as_ endangered. Mello knew she had talked to B, and he was definitely smart enough to deduce that B had been the real reason she had hidden herself in the room. If he wasn't smart enough to deduce that, then the chocolate must have all gone to his brain. As far as Alpha knew, that was impossible – with all the chocolate she had been eating for years, she was still smart enough to have been named number two in hers and L's age group, which definitely meant something for her. If Mello wasn't smart enough to figure out that she was afraid for her life of Beyond Birthday, of B, then she had no idea what the world was coming to.

She found herself chewing her thumbnail again as she thought of all of this, and couldn't help but wonder why that little red-eyed shit had to make her think like that damn Llama. Of all the people in the world she could have thought like, why it had to be him was beyond her. She didn't understand how the genius could annoy her even when he wasn't there, but he was somehow managing it. She pulled her thumb away from her mouth for probably the hundredth time in the past three days she had hidden herself and glared at the appendage as though the fault lay upon it. She knew, though, that the fault was all her own. She was the one allowing B to make her this paranoid. Alpha knew she didn't _have_ to be paranoid of the little… the little _vampire_, if she was going to use Mello's reasoning, but she was. Her mind was allowing her to be. She was trying t justify her reason for being paranoid, but she knew that Beyond Birthday could have just as easily as anyone else hacked into the Wammy's database and looked up her name just to scare her.

But still, who the bloody hell was Akino? It didn't seem _that_ would _ever_ make sense. As Alpha reached under her bed to grab a chocolate bar that would hopefully calm her nerves, she knew she was going to have to do something soon if she wanted to keep the little sanity she had left in the first place.

* * *

_Working dilligently on my next updates. Please do be patient with me?_


	9. Goodbyes

Well, it's as I said. This is my last chapter for this story, but there's two epilogues after. One from L's POV and the other from Matt's, then Mello's.

And there WILL be a sequell.

**Warnings**: Shinigami! Psycho B. Ten-Year-Old Mello. Marcus Antonius the Psychodiary, othwewise known as 'Ant.' Swearing.

**Disclaimer**: No owns.

**Quick-Quote**: "_I'm not your fuckin' slave_," he said, his voice distinctively American in accent, before taking another bite of apple. Alpha could barely hide a grin at this – the Shinigami wasn't going to do anything for B, even if the little psycho did get him apples.

* * *

_AAAANNNNNTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

_Hath been bloody forever. Didja miss me, buddy? I missed you! In case you couldn't tell by the spine-breaking hug I gave you earlier. Yeah. Sorry bout that. Awwwkkwarrd._

_Lots to catch up on, though. I'm 20 bloody years old now, still at the Wammy's house, still afraid for my life of who is now a little thirteen year old. Mello's ten now, still hyper and chocolate addicted as ever. Remember how I told him he had to wait until he was 10 before he could start swearing? Yeah. He fucking remembered. Zippidy do dah to me._

_Oh, right. Yeah, I stole you back from Karen. I'm just that slick XD L forgave me for not saying goodbye to him, he'd have been a bit callous not to have forgiven me. Pretty unfortunate for me how much I adore that damn llama. He's just finished working some case somewhere, no idea what it's about, but it doesn't seem anything's taken him more than a few months to solve lately, so whatever. He'll be back by tomorrow, supposedly. I've got my own case to worry about here._

_I recently heard B refer to Akino as a 'Shinigami.' This being me we're talking about, I had to look it up. Just had to. And, a Shinigami is basically a Death God. Rumors say they kill with a notebook. Maybe B picked up a notebook and all that? Still doesn't explain how he can see peoples' names and times of death, but whatever. I don't care. I'm done living in fear. I'm going to talk to him today. I'm practically working Roger's old job. I have the right to walk up to his door, knock on it, and kick it in and go "whatchoo doin, foo'??!?!?!" Not quite in that context, but you get what I'm sayin. Of course, I haven't talked to you for ages now, so I can't blame you if you don't get it._

_Whatever. I'm off, anyway. I seriously need to find that jam eating vampire. I'm starting to agree with Mello on that. I think he's a vampire._

_Talk to ya later, paper buddy. I could be leaving the orphanage soon, but I swear I'll bring you with me if I do._

––

Alpha yawned as she set down her notebook. Getting her notebook back had been a tedious effort. She had to tear appart Karen's office, and then put it back together so she wouldn't realize anything was missing. Besides which, it was raining. The rain seemed to be bringing down a monotonous atmosphere from the sky itself, making the day itself seem tiring. Sleep, however, or even rest, wasn't an option. For how long had she put off confronting that little bastard? Four years. She was afraid of someone seven years younger than her. That was just ridiculous of her, and she needed to get the hell over it. If anything, he knew she had been listening to his conversations with Akino, which was probably why he had used the word Shinigami. That was probably it.

So, Alpha stood from her bed, a new (yet false) hope implanted into her mind. She walked slowly to her own door and down the hall a little ways. She could hear his voice growing louder as she approached, louder and louder – his door was open and he was sitting on his bed with a jar of jam, as always.

"Akino, could you please be quiet? I don't care if I'm not the boss of you – just be _quiet_, I just gave you an apple, what else could you possibly want? I'm _not_ getting you another, you're still eating that one!" Alpha was _sure_ she heard a _crunch!_ noise issue from the room. "I know it's almost gone. I don't care. I'm busy, I actually have homework."

She moved to the very front of the doorframe and saw it. An apple was floating in midair, apparently eating itself. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped.

"What's that?" B asked absently, flipping through pages of a textbook. He then stopped what he was doing and looked up sharply. Then, with a glare at the apple, he said, "why didn't you close the door this time?"

Alpha, attempting to regain her calm, leaned against the doorframe. "I already know," she said, "so there's really no point in blaming it on the Shinigami." B looked somewhat shocked at this. "If you would have talked a little more quietly, I wouldn't have known anything," she said. "Now, where is it?" It was a long shot, but it might work.

"Where's what?" he asked suspiciously.

"You know what," she said. "The thing that binds the Shinigami to you. I know you have it, and I know it's how you killed A. I know it's how you're planning to kill me."

They looked at each other for a moment. Alpha found it hard to look at B, just considering his eyes, the way they seemed to almost be on fire, but she managed to keep calm… even though she _was_ bluffing. There was a possibility it was a notebook, like she had read, but what were really the chances of that? It was hard to believe a person could kill with a notebook. It was also hard to believe an apple was eating itself right in front of her, so she supposed she couldn't consider anything to be completely impossible.

She managed to keep her eyes narrowed determinedly. Finally, after what felt like hours but had really only been a minute, Beyond reached under the edge of his bed and pulled out a notebook. He flipped it open and took a pen in his hand. As the pen had just touched the paper and wrote something, Alpha rushed forward and grabbed the book from him to look at it – she breathed a sigh of relief at seeing he had only written half of her first name. However, she thought she might die of a heart attack anyway when she looked up and saw what had been eating that apple.

It looked like it might have been human at one point in time, but its body had decomposed on its right side to nothing but bone. In the eye socket of its bone side glowed a red light, like some sort of spiritual eye. There was a wing built of bone on this side, but the bone was black and bent behind it to apparently save space. The other side of his body – or she assumed it was a 'he' – looked at least somewhat humanoid. While his face was a light, light gray in color and his lips held a strange purplish tint like a person who had been sick for quite a while, he was humanoid. He had an eye on this side that was entirely red, even where his whites should have been, with a black pupil in the middle, and dark black hair that looked neatly cut on only the left side – there was just bone on the other. He had a wing on his right side as well, one that looked like an angel's wing dyed black. Over all of this, he wore a tattered trench coat with a strange looking jester-like costume beneath, and long black boots. In his remaining ear was a dangling earring with a large, silver skull at its end, transposed onto a silver cross painted black.

"So now you know who Akino is," said B, sounding angry. "And you have my notebook. I see you've done your homework. Akino," said B, "kill her."

"_I'm not your fuckin' slave_," he said, his voice distinctively American in accent, before taking another bite of apple. Alpha could barely hide a grin at this – the Shinigami wasn't going to do anything for B, even if the little psycho did get him apples. "_I'm just here because you picked up my spare notebook. I'd have never carried an extra if I'd known I had to stick with whatever human picked up the damn thing…_" he added in a grumble.

Alpha laughed, waving the notebook at him. "Now I've got your weapon and you can't do a bloody thing about it."

"You really think so?" Alpha furrowed her brow. "Then you should sleep with one eye open tonight, I guess." He picked up his math book again after returning his voice back to its regular stoic, L-like tones. "There's no point in you staying here. Go on and leave."

Alpha did leave, and not at all reluctantly. Sleep with one eye open… was he going to try to kill her by some other means as she slept? No, that would have been insane. He was insane enough, but he was also smart enough not to kill anyone in a way that would leave behind any evidence that could truly be used against him. All she had on him was a notebook… and a demonic apple-addict, but she wasn't about to let anyone touch it – except for maybe one person.

L was coming to visit tomorrow. After Mello finished questioning him about how the case went and what it was about, she could talk to him, couldn't she? He would be able to help her find some way to prove it. If she could just make it through tonight, everything would be all right. Everything would work out fine, she could get B to be kicked out of Wammy's and she could stay with Mello for a little while longer. If she left now, he wouldn't be expecting it and he'd be devastated. She supposed, more than anything, she looked at him almost like a son these days. She was ten years older than him, she had taken care of him and taught him everything she could… albeit some things – such as swearing and chocolate addiction – weren't so splendiferous, but it all accounted for something, didn't it? He looked at her more like a sister, but she held him in regards as her own child lately. She couldn't say why, but that's how it had turned out.

Yes, Alpha had to make it until tomorrow. That's all there was to it, she needed to hold out for long enough to get a little bit of help from L, the only person who _could_ help her. She could only hope he wouldn't die of surprise at the sight of Akino as she almost did, but if she could get help…. She needed to stay.

Alpha rushed to her room, and froze in the doorway when she saw Mello sitting on her bed. She could only thank whatever God was watching over her that he hadn't decided to invade her privacy and read her psychodiary. He pointed at the notebook she was holding and spoke through a mouthful of chocolate: "Whuff that?"

"Nothing," she said dismissively, stuffing it between the frame of her bed and the mattress. "You didn't read that, did you?" she added, pointing at her own journal as she sat on the edge of the bed. He shook his head no and swallowed.

"I'm almost out of chocolate, I just needed to stock up." He held up a few bars, one of which was open.

"Eating your stores isn't going to do you much good," said Alpha, laughing as she grabbed up her notebook and also stuffed it between her mattress and her bed frame. "What're you still doing sitting on my bed, then?"

"I didn't feel like playing Mortal Combat again," he said. "I'm in hiding. Don't see why he doesn't just play it with that girl that's been following him around for the past year."

"Linda?" Mello nodded. "She's nice enough, just a bit on the girly side. I'm betting she hates videogames. Not many girls like them anyway, so I don't guess it would be very surprising if she didn't."

"I don't like them much either," said Mello distastefully. "I have to fuckin' hear about them all day, it gets old."

"Language!"

"I'm ten."

"I don't care, you're still not bloody old enough to be doing that…"

"Am too."

"Still don't think you are," said Alpha with a sigh.

"Yeah," said Mello, hopping off the bed with the stolen chocolate. "I think I'll go back to my room, can't get nagged at there for swearing."

"Unless I follow you."

"Dammit."

"Language."

"_Maldicion_."

"Smart ass," Alpha muttered.

"Language!"

"_Hijo_ _inteligente_!"

"Whatever."

"Don't you whatever me!"

Mello shut the door behind him, and Alpha stood to walk to the door after he left. She locked it and lay down on her bed, hoping that would at least remotely hold B out for a while. Mello not questioning her as to why she locked her door anymore made things quite a bit easier on her. She didn't have to worry as much about him finding out just how afraid she was of Beyond Birthday.

* * *

_I can't wait._

_I'm sorry, I just can't. I don't know who I'm apologizing to. Mello, definitely. And L. And Matt. And Near, as Mello might kill you when I'm gone. And Watari, for everything your orphanage did for me. There must be a God, or I'd have never found my way here to redeem myself by taking care of Mello. B's outside my door, and he's been standing there for an hour. I'm sneaking out my window. I'm burying the "Death Note," as the thing says on its front cover. I'll burry it next to an apple tree, the one right by my window. I've already got it in a plastic bag in an old jewelry box of some kind I nicked off Roger a while back. I'll make sure that the grass goes back over top of it in whole pieces so Beyond won't ever find it. I also nicked some rope out of the garden shed in case it ever came down to this, so it's tied to my bed now, to the leg, securely enough so it won't come loose._

_I just can't stay anymore. I'm scared for my bloody life. It might be raining outside, but I'll leave now if it'll take me away from Beyond. I don't care. I've got to pack you up now. I've got to go._

––

Alpha shot a quick look at the door and saw a shadow of feet underneath it still. She had heard and could still hear Akino talking to Beyond Birthday, so she knew it was him out there. She tossed the rope out her window and, while she wasn't one for climbing, she was about to do just that. She zipped up some clothes and a few other things in her bag, along with her journal and the box with the notebook in it. She then dropped those out the window and watched them fall, the rain wetting her hair as she hung her head out the window. She then took a hold of the rope and, not knowing what to expect, ended up sliding down it slowly enough to land safely, but quickly enough to burn her hands horribly.

Alpha picked up her bag and hurried to the garden shed a few feet away, just on the corner of the property, to get out a shovel. She carried the shovel over to the tree and dug. She carefully placed the grassy layer of topsoil behind her to lay down last, then continued digging at a much faster pace. She unzipped her bag quickly, retrieved the box, and dropped it in the hole once it was deep enough, and stood to shovel the dirt back into the hole. She carefully laid the grass back down and patted it down with the shovel to avoid it looking suspicious. She then tossed the shovel back in the direction of the garden shed without bothering to put it back all the way. She hurried around to the front, to the driveway leading up to the front of the orphanage and moved quickly for the gates.

Then she heard it.

"Oi! Where in the bloody hell are you going!"

The voice had yelled from close behind her, and she stopped and winced. She dropped her bag and turned around to be faced with a blond-haired midget. She should have expected it; he had most likely heard the commotion outside from his room and saw her. There was no doubt he would have come out to see what was going on. She couldn't tell if he looked more confused or hurt. Alpha pinched the bridge of her nose before kneeling down and looking at the child seriously.

"I know I've been avoiding telling you everything," she said. "B is out to kill me. I mean _literally_, he _is_ mad. He won't hurt anyone as long as he remains L's successor, but he saw me as a threat since I was older than him. He stood outside my door for an hour tonight, and I just can't take it anymore. He might be seven years younger than me, but I'd still rather not live every day of my life thinking about dying."

"B – but – you didn't say you were going to leave – you could stay until tomorrow and see if L can help and –"

"I can't. There's no doubt that kid can pick locks, so locking my door wouldn't even help. And I don't have any proof, I just _know_, Mello, that wouldn't be enough for Watari, much less Roger." She sighed and looked down at the ground. "I've got to leave."

"W-w-well, can't I come with you, then??"

"That's not possible. It would be kidnapping then, and the only place I have left to go isn't any place for a ten-year-old. I'm going to stay with a member of my old street gang, and if not, I'll be living on the streets. I'd be endangering your life if I let you come with me. You knew I'd end up leaving one day, Mello."

"You _can't_."

"Either I leave or I get killed in my sleep. I'm sure we'll see each other again. But… you do deserve to know…"

"What?"

"What've your dreams been like lately?"

Mello tilted his head to the side in puppy-like confusion, his nose looking a bit redder than usual. Was Mello, the terror of all terrors, the one person who probably could have scared Beyond Birthday into exile on one of his bad days, _crying_? Good way to make Alpha feel like shit, but she had to keep focused. He was ten now, he was old enough to know the truth. His eyes finally widened in realization. "I've only had a couple about Mum and Dad over the past month," he said, now looking at his feet.

"Roger was lying." He looked back up, his eyes widening. "I know you were having those dreams because your subconscious mind was trying to tell you what really happened. I think they were right next to your apartment building at the time…. They were killed by a gang member. One that was in the same one as me and my brother. We were both there. I tried to do something and he reached back and slashed me across the face with the knife he had, hence why you heard someone telling him off for 'hurting his sister.' That was my brother. The same brother," she said, taking the rosary around her neck in one hand and holding it up a little, "who gave me this right before he died." She could feel her own eyes stinging, but she could blame it on the rain if any tears spilled over. "I think you had the dream because you heard what happened, since I think the apartment they had parked next to was the one they were living at, so you were probably there with a babysitter or something. I didn't want to tell you anything until I left. You can decide whether or not to blame it on me now."

Now he looked more confused. "It's not your f-f-fault…" He sniffed loudly. It was hard to believe – she hadn't seen the kid cry for six years. "You _said_ you tried to d-do something. Isn't that where that scar came from?"

"Yeah…" she said. "I just don't think I tried hard enough…. You wouldn't have ever had to know what this place was if I had."

"B-but then I wouldn't've m-met you or L or Matt or _anyone_."

Alpha smiled. "You might've been better off it you hadn't met me," she said. "I've probably corrupted you for the rest of your life."

At least he laughed at that. That was all she could have asked for. "Here," she said, pulling off her rosary. "This way, if we don't see each other again," she continued, handing it to him, "you'll always remember me."

He sniffed and took the necklace. "That's so _cliché_…"

And that made _her_ laugh. "All right, mini-me," she said. "Then take all the chocolate I left under my bed as well before Roger gets his hands on it." She grinned, and he did the same, half-heartedly, before hugging her.

"You're still a complete _ass_ for leaving," he said.

"Yeah, love you too, kid," she said.

"Oh," she added as she was standing back up, "if I ever catch wind that you've joined a gang," she said, kneeling back down for a moment, "then you'd better run for the hills." She patted him on the shoulder. "Now get back inside before you catch pneumonia, I won't be blamed for you getting sick if they find me."

He laughed a little as she stood back up, but she heard a quiet and reluctant, "Bye…" as she turned. She looked back over her shoulder.

"Don't be so upset, we'll see each other again," she assured him. "And don't kill Near, either. It won't be as satisfying as the idea sounds in your head, trust me. Now, don't say _goodbye_. You'd do better saying 'see ya.' It's not quite as pessimistic."

"Then see you later," he said, looking down at the beaded rosary she had handed him a minute ago.

"See ya."

She hurried off quickly, doing the best she could not to look behind her, where she was sure Mello was still standing and looking after her as she tossed her bag over the high gates and climbed up them herself. She was sure he was still standing there in the rain, sure to get a terrible case of pneumonia if he stood there any longer. She couldn't look back. If she looked back, she would want to stay, and she couldn't stay. She couldn't stay at that place the rest of her life, she couldn't stay there living in fear of death. She had to leave now, or she would be stuck there forever.

It was the best thing for her, and was the best thing for Mello. She knew he'd be better off at this point if she was gone. But she also knew that – regardless the situation, regardless of how long from now – they would meet again.

She finally managed to look back when she jumped down to the other side of the gates and landed on all fours (not very gracefully). Mello was just going back into the orphanage, without a single glance back. So, also without looking back, she turned, picked up her bags, and set off down the road on the other side of the gates, bound for wherever her screwed up life was going to take her now.

* * *

_Well, like I said, there will be a sequel, so please don't kill me yet :(_

_I'm posting the first epilogue along with this one so you have something else to read. It's not long, but it's still something._


	10. Epilogue Part 1 of 2: L

_Here's the first epilogue, as promised, I'll do the second when I get home from school tomorrow._

_**Quick-quote**: _'He stopped at Alpha's room first and looked in. It didn't seem she had left much, but she really hadn't had much to begin with. A few band tees, some tattered blue jeans, maybe a leather vest or two, and those fingerless leather gloves she always wore. The computer had belonged to The Wammy's House in the first place, so it would have been theft if she had taken it (and he was still honestly a bit surprised it was still there).'

* * *

L was halfway happy to arrive back at the orphanage. He generally was put in a good mood after solving a case, and he did consider the place as something of a home. He wasn't sure why he did, but he did well enough. He had lived there his entire life, but he really hadn't enjoyed it until he was around fourteen, maybe fifteen. Having had no real "friends" until around then, it was impossible to like or dislike the place. And as he entered the front door and had enough time to give it a quick look around before being practically attacked by midgets, he did feel quite happy to be there.

Strange enough, though, was the fact that there were definitely at least two missing midgets. There was no blond eating chocolate, swearing like a sailor. There was no redhead in orange goggles with a GameBoy glued to his hands. They were almost always the first to tackle him and Watari when they entered the doors. Something strange was going on, something just strange enough to flip his mind instantaneously back into detective mode. After giving a quick and vague hello to the crowd of children, he moved quickly towards Roger's office and opened the door abruptly. The old man sitting behind the desk gave a jump and looked up from his computer.

"Ah, good to see you're here L," he said, sounding a bit offhand. "And Watari, sir, nice to see you're back for a visit. How did the case go?"

"Fine," said L.

"Is Mello feeling a bit under the weather?" asked Watari, saving L the trouble. "We missed his regular rather enthusiastic greeting."

"I suppose you could say he's feeling 'under the weather,' yes. He certainly has come down with a cold, but that normally doesn't keep him down for more than an hour. Of course, he's generally faking it so he can miss classes, but I suppose that's besides the point. That's… very much besides the point. Y– you see, this morning, there was a bit of an issue."

"Oh?" said Watari, taking a seat in a chair in front of the desk. L sat down in his usual manner, pulling his legs up to his chest, in the other chair, and peered at Roger suspiciously from over his knees. "Do tell. I'll be happy to sort it out if you've failed to, Roger."

"No, no, it's nothing involving the children," he said. "Not – not exactly, anyway. It seems…" He paused and gave a heavy sigh, wringing his hands on top of his desk. "It seems we're missing someone."

"Who?" asked L.

"Er – apparently, according to Mello's version of things, B has been causing problems lately, made Alpha think she was in danger. Nevertheless, she didn't come downstairs to work this morning, and I found her room empty with a rope going out the window, tied to the leg of her bed. She left a few of her things, which Mello claims he will hold onto until he can see her again. He won't tell us where she's gone to, and I question whether or not I can believe whether or not she was actually afraid enough of B for him to have been the reason for her to have gone."

L stopped chewing his thumbnail when Roger finished. However, Watari beat him to asking the first question.

"Had she showed no signs of being discontented at all before she apparently ran off?"

"Er… none that _I_ really noticed."

_Not that you'd notice if there was a kick me sign taped to your back_, L thought to himself, resuming chewing on his thumb to keep him from saying something so inappropriate. _So B was bothering her that badly? I didn't think… then again, he drove A to suicide, what if she only left to – no, that wasn't her style at all. A was unstable to begin with; Alpha was a bit too… __something__ to do anything that stupid. I figured she would leave eventually, but not without telling anyone…. I wonder if she talked to Mello first._

"Is Mello in his room?" asked L.

"Wh – yes, I believe so. I think Matt is as well, no doubt playing videogames," Roger said. "I honestly don't know how that boy ever – where are you going?"

"Upstairs," said L, before leaving the room. And he did head upstairs. He stopped at Alpha's room first and looked in. It didn't seem she had left much, but she really hadn't had much to begin with. A few band tees, some tattered blue jeans, maybe a leather vest or two, and those fingerless leather gloves she always wore. The computer had belonged to The Wammy's House in the first place, so it would have been theft if she had taken it (and he was still honestly a bit surprised it was still there). He knew she had a tendency to hide things between her box spring for her bed and her mattress. Though he felt a bit nosy for doing so, she might have left some clue as to why she left if he checked under it. However, when he lifted the mattress, he found nothing. She hadn't left anything. That wasn't much of a help.

He left her room and continued down the hall to Matt and Mello's shared room. Matt apparently hadn't been woken up by Mello that morning, as he was asleep on the floor in front of his television, on which the words "Game Over" could be seen in large letters. Mello sat up on his bed when he spotted L, sneezed and said "L!" loud enough to wake Matt up.

The first thing that seemed out of place that L noticed was the rosary around his neck – that had been Alpha's, and she had never taken it off. That meant he had definitely spoken with her. Mello looked down at it himself when he saw that L had noticed, and he looked back up.

"She left," he said, maneuvering himself so his legs were hanging off the side of his bed. "She was afraid of B. He stood outside her door for an hour before she left, and I only just managed to sneak past him. He had a knife and everything, he wasn't joking at all."

"Do you know why?" asked L. Mello shook his head no.

"She never told me why. I don't think she wanted anyone to know anything. I think she might have known something about him or something. She gave me this, though," he said, holding up her old rosary. "I followed her outside and tried to talk her into staying, but she said she couldn't. I told Roger everything, but I don't think the old bastard believed me," said Mello in annoyance. Then he sneezed again, and sniffed. "It was raining last night. I think I have pneumonia," he said miserably.

Mello always had been one for melodrama…. "He didn't seemed to have believed you," said L.

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Good!" said Mello indignantly. "Then tell _that_ crazy old shite 'ead that, he's been getting on my nerves about it already like he thinks it's _my_ fault! What's his problem anyway?"

L managed to assure Mello he would talk Roger into believing it, and he was allowed to head back into Roger's office. Roger was alone now, as Watari had apparently either gone off to greet others or head to his office and make sure all of the work that needed to be done in his absence had been managed efficiently. Roger looked up when L entered. "I take it you talked to Mello, then?"

"Yes," said L, taking a seat in the office, "and I believe his side of things. Everything he said sounded exactly like something B would do to get rid of someone he thought of to be in his way. He drove A to suicide, you were there for that and all the controversy it brought up when the news was alerted. You know just as well as I do what B is capable of."

"Yes," said Roger, "and I suppose Mello _could_ be telling the truth, he just has a tendency to exaggerate things a bit. Do _you_ honestly believe that B stood outside her door with a knife for an hour last night? I find that a little farfetched."

"Roger, listen to me," he said. "I profile serial killers as a job. I profile them and hunt them. If someone had told me about B when he was six without mentioning any names or ages, just told me about what he acts like around others and what his quirks are, I'd have said he was insane and needed to be kept away from all other humans. B isn't sane, and he's definitely mad enough to kill. I've never understood why no one keeps a better eye on him than is already kept on him."

"Do you really think…?" Roger said worriedly, trailing off. "Then I suppose we will have to keep a better eye on him. We can't have this happening again with any of the others. Alpha's a huge loss as it is, she was definitely intelligent enough."

"Then make sure you keep a watch on him," said L, standing. "The next ones he would target would be Mello and Near. I'd say that, given enough time and torment from B, Near would turn out like A and Mello would turn out like Alpha. It's as you said, we can't have this happening again."

"You're completely right, L."

L left the office to go sit on the sofa and take all the usual questions about his last case. It seemed stranger than usual without Alpha's constant sarcastic remarks and Mello's incessant swearing (which was generally followed by Alpha yelling the word 'language' at him). He supposed he would just have to get used to that. After all, there was really no point in looking for her, even if she had only left the previous night.

All there was to do was to wonder where, and exactly _why_. It was B, of course, but what exactly had he done? It wasn't like he would answer, so that was bound to remain a mystery until he discovered Alpha's whereabouts. That could take years, though. If Alpha Epsilon didn't want to be found, then she wouldn't be found.


	11. Epilogue Part 2 of 2: Matt and Mello

_Wells, no reviews on my last chapters. I do hope you notice this one, as it's the LAST ONE FOR THIS STORY._

_And thar she blows V Yeah, down there. Below the border line. Yep. Why are you still reading? You should probably scroll down there now. That's where the story is. Are you seriously still reading?_

_... didn't think so. Now go. Read. VV Down there. Yeah. :scroll!!:_

* * *

There wasn't much left to be done at the Wammy's House. Mello was gone, so there was no more mildly amusing Near torture. L was dead and Near was named his successor, so there was no goal to be met anymore. All that this red haired gamer had left to do was beat the same game on his Game Boy for the tenth, possibly eleventh time. It had indeed been a year since Mello's departure, and there were already preparations being made for Near to go to America and meet with the president of the United States. Life was truly going to be boring from now on.

It was early in the morning when Matt heard a knock on the door to his room. He looked up at the door accusingly from his game as though it could be pounding on itself. Shifting that thought from his head, he realized that the knocking meant _someone_ had to be on the other side causing the disturbance (it was early and his mind was working a _little_ slowly).

"Who's 'ere?" he said to the mystery knocker.

"Matt, you've received a letter in the mail."

This was the voice of the old man that now owned the orphanage since Watari had also died. Ignoring the mention of his real name as a shortened version of "postal service," Matt stood up from the bottom bunk of the bed in his room and walked cautiously over to the door. He never got any mail. He had only ever gotten one letter from his chocoholic friend since he joined the mafia in Los Angeles (which had given him a good laugh if nothing else). He opened his door and stared at Roger through his orange tinted goggles. Roger scowled.

"Three weeks cleaning the lawns!"

"W-why?!" Matt looked down past his nose and saw the cigarette he was holding near his lips. "Oh."

"Don't even know how you manage to sneak those damn things in here…" the old man grumbled, holding out an enveloped letter. "There's no return address, so there's no telling who it could be from."

Matt looked at the envelope as the door was shut in front of him. He turned and walked back to his bed, somewhat recognizing the elegant script handwriting on the address to the orphanage. He wasn't sure why…. For the first time in weeks, he paused his game and set it next to him. He opened the envelope carefully, as though afraid it might explode in his hands. Luckily it didn't. He pulled out a few small, yellow sheets of paper that had clearly been torn from a legal pad and looked immediately for a name. The cigarette dropped from his mouth and threatened to burn a hole in his jeans when he found it. He flipped back to the first page and began reading, picking his cigarette back up before it could light his jeans aflame.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––_  
Oy, Matty._

_First off, I'd like to know if the bullshit in the letter Mello  
recently sent me was real. He's in the fucking mafia!?  
What's he gone and done that for? I warned him about  
getting mixed up in all of that, didn't I? I just hope you  
didn't run off after him. One sixteen year old mafia  
member is enough to deal with. Pretty annoying,  
really. I did my damndest to try to keep that kid out of  
trouble and he ended up taking after me anyway._

_I'm rambling. Sorry bout that. If you've heard anything  
from him, then let me know. __He's__ certainly not returned  
any of my letters, the little bugger…._

_Ah. How rude of me. Didn't even say hello, just went  
and started pestering you about your rogue roommate,  
haha. Sorry. You know what I get like when either of  
you does something stupid. Like the time you decided  
to take your Game Boy apart and it blew up. And no,  
I'm still not letting you live that one down._

_Well, I've been having a jolly good time since __I__ left. Hoo,  
boy, I'll tell you. I can't give any details, but it involves a  
certain psycho serial killer located in the Kanto region of  
Japan. Yeah. I went and learned Japanese on a whim  
after I left the orphanage. Bet you didn't expect that.  
Also bet five quid you've done nothing but play your Game  
Boy since Mellonhead left. I'd be bored out of my mind,  
too. Come to think, I __am__ bored out of my mind right now.  
Living just isn't any fun when everyone thinks your busy  
mourning the dead, you know?_

_I wonder, does Roger know about L and Watari? I imagine  
something should have been sent to the orphanage about it.  
But if that were so, then Mello wouldn't have gone and joined  
the fucking mafia. Which I still just can't picture. For anything.  
It's ridiculous._

_Anyway, yes, about L and Watari. Their hearts 'stopped' and  
everything, which I __know__ was sent to the orphanage. That  
bit was supposed to be sent. But, I was in charge of a little  
con that worked out in the end (although I was scared to  
fucking hell that it wouldn't, I'll have you know). Had to  
pose as an official at some court house after one of L's con  
artist friends talked my way inside (God bless Aiber, even  
though I do think he's gayer than Elton John with a side of  
Axl Rose). And – here's the kicker. I changed their names. _

_I learned about a rule. A rule about Kira's powers that even  
he doesn't know about. God bless Ryuk as well, even though  
he is a bitch for starting the whole mess in the first place.  
He told me about it (I'm not going to give you any information  
on Ryuk. You wouldn't believe me if I did. I barely believe  
me as it is). If you legally change the name of a person killed by  
Kira's methods within the twenty-four hours after their  
death, then they __come back to life__. Isn't that the shiz? See,  
Ryuk thinks I'm cool, so he helps me out more than Kira. He's  
only been following Kira around because he thinks the  
whole Kira mess is amusing for God only knows why.  
Despite the fact he started this, as I said, he's pretty cool._

_I asked L what being dead is like. He said he doesn't  
remember. Does that suck or __what__? Watari doesn't,  
either, but he's old so he's allowed to forget plus he's  
cooler than Llama-head. Can't even remember what  
death was like! What the hell? And they say he's smart.  
Psh._

_Alright, he rolled his eyes and walked away, back to  
the point. Well. Actually, that's about all there is to say  
for now. I __WANT YOU TO WRITE BACK.__ I'm going to  
come to Wammy's and (insert extremely painful sounding  
threat here) if you don't!! I didn't put a return address on  
the outside because I don't like Roger and I don't want  
him to write shit to me. So, here's the addy:_

_P.O. Box 731, __Kōen Street_, _Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan_

_I will say this one more time, so you understand, because  
Mellonhead obviously didn't. __I WANT YOU TO WRITE BACK__.  
Yes, that means soon. As soon as possible. You'd best  
write back. You already know about what will happen  
if you don't._

_Love ya, kid.  
Be good.  
DON'T JOIN THE FUCKING MAFIA!_

– _αlpha εpsilon–  
_––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Matt's cigarette had fallen out of his mouth again right around the "they come back to life" part, and had successfully managed to burn a hole in his jeans. Scowling at the thing as he picked it back up and flicked a few ashes off of its tip onto the floor, he read through a few random parts of the letter again. He wasn't sure who Ryuk could have possibly been, but from the way she had put it, Ryuk had given Kira this power… which meant… could he have possibly been anything other than human? Granted, the Kira case had some strange supernatural aspects attached to it, but for anything other than humans to be involved was incomprehensible.

He was definitely going to write back. And he was definitely going to have a talk with a certain megalomaniacal chocoholic.

But first, he had somewhere around a thousand questions he needed answered.

* * *

Mello hadn't checked his post office box in _ages_. It had been a few months since he wrote to her after tracking her down in Japan, where she had no doubt been helping L on the Kira case before… before _that_ happened. He found himself unable to come to terms with the fact that his idol – or at least, _one_ of his idols – was dead. It wasn't so much devastation as it was disbelief. It didn't feel any different than it had when he was alive, so his mind wasn't going to allow him to believe it.

He got a few strange looks as he walked into the post office and looked for box number 333. It wasn't every day the people there saw a teenager clad in all leather and eating a chocolate bar walk into a building with a sign that said clearly "no food or drink" on the front door. Mello glowered at these people so they wouldn't say anything to him about it. It wasn't _his_ fucking fault he was addicted to chocolate, after all…. The leather thing was sort of entirely his fault, but that wasn't their problem, so they had no fucking reason to be glaring at _him_!

His first reaction to the contents of his postal box was complete and utter shock. His second reaction was to pick the overflowing letters up off of the floor quickly before he could get any more strange looks from the other, slightly less eccentric people who were getting their mail. He took the last three letters out and stacked the pile neatly before flipping through them. The top letter was Matt's sloppy handwriting, but the other three thousand or so had a different handwriting. A neat, elegant looking script. That meant that…. His eyes widened as he flipped through and found that every other letter, except maybe one or two more from Matt, had the same exact handwriting, with no return address.

He was going to be taking some time off from mafia happenings on that particular day. That was for sure. He had a _lot_ reading to do.

Hours later, Mello was laid down on the bed in his apartment with copious amounts of torn envelopes and yellow paper surrounding him, all yelling the same things at him. How he was a, quote, "fucking Mellonhead" for joining the mafia when L died. How she couldn't _believe_ he thought that's what she would have done (hah, yeah right. He knew damn well that's what she would have done). How L and Watari were actually still alive – which had promptly caused him to choke on his chocolate bar and spontaneously be forced to learn how to perform the Heimlich maneuver on himself. Telling him to write back because she was worried. Later letters began including that if he had gone and gotten himself killed, she was going to hold a séance just so she could beat the crap out of him. After telling himself he wouldn't over and over as he read through the letters, his eyes finally betrayed him and forced him to shed a tear for the first time since he was ten years old. He, Mello, the kid that got into the mafia in Los Angeles and worked his way to the top by the age of _fifteen_, had shed a tear over a few (hundred) letters.

And, he thought to himself as he reached under his bed to pull a pack of notebook paper out, it wasn't quite as mortifying as he had expected it to be. There was one problem, however.

Of all the things that could have happened when he had to reply to thousands of letters, it just _had_ to be this….

He'd lost his fucking _pen_.

Grumbling in annoyance, he stood up next to his bed and stretched out; he'd been laying flat on his stomach reading for the past umpteen-something hours in leather that didn't offer much room to move, after all. He decided he'd read Matt's letters after replying to hers. He obviously hadn't been as persistent in attacking Mello with envelopes and legal paper as she had, so he was sure it would be safe to wait for a bit. He walked through the living room of his apartment and opened the door. Then – of all the sacrilege reactions he could have made in his surprise – he dropped his chocolate bar, gaping at the chain smoker standing at the door with a Game Boy and his hand raised to knock on the door. He looked up. Mello saw Matt's eyebrows rise through the orange shields that were the lenses of his goggles.

"Leather fetish much?"

After a moment longer of gaping at the mildly amused gamer, Mello rolled his eyes at the moronic question. He probably _should_ have read Matt's letters. That would have avoided a lot of confusion. There was only one reason he could have been there, however. The question didn't even need to be asked before Mello could give a sigh of resignation and give Matt an answer to it.

"_Fine_," Mello said as he heaved a sigh, "but you're sleeping on the _couch_."

"Knew it," Matt said, his amused grin widening.

"What?" Mello asked, reaching down to pick up his dropped chocolate.

"You do love me."

Mello stood back up, glaring at Matt. "Bite me."

"Wow, you've developed all kinds of fetishes, 'aven't ya?"

"Fucking pervert…" Mello muttered, pushing his way past Matt. "Come on! We're buying a damn pen!"

Matt looked after the chocolate (and now leather to top it off) obsessed blond for a moment, before shrugging and walking after him, now giving his focus back to his Game Boy.

* * *

_And there you have it! That's the end of the story, but the sequel is still to come, so be patient. There will of course be more from Akino. With as much thought as I put into the son of a bitch, there'd better be. Matt and Mello won't play a huge role in it until later, or until a third story, but they shall be back. I would have never wrote this if they weren't going to be back._


End file.
